Everyone is buzzing about the rise in gas prices. I hear it on the news night and day. Every time you turn on the television someone is being interviewed about how the cost of gas is hurting them, and almost every time you get the answer that they have to stay home more often and can’t go on trips or vacations, etc. I have yet to see any working individual (other than truckers and businesses) talk about the real effect that the high gas problems are having on the working class families. It’s about a lot more than not taking a distant vacation, or taking one less shopping trip, or having to walk or ride bikes to short destinations; the effect is much deeper than that. Those things are luxuries that many of us weren’t able to indulge in to begin with. Rising gas prices are crippling families who were already struggling to get by.

Many of you who are native to rural South Georgia know that the majority of us live in smaller towns and communities, such as Sycamore, Ashburn, Chula, TyTy, Omega, Enigma and so on. In these smaller towns jobs are few and far between, so many of us are forced to commute long distances to larger towns to find employment. I’m going to share my story of struggles with you regarding the real affect of rising gas prices.

My partner, our two children and I live in Sycamore. We both earn modest incomes, approximately $50,000 annually together, and our bills at one point were manageable. We were living a relatively comfortable lifestyle just a mere two years ago. Please let me elaborate on comfortable; we were able to pay our bills, buy a few things we wanted, go out a little bit and have a few dollars left over at the end of the week.

For the past eight years my partner has commuted back and forth to Tifton to work, and for the past three years I have commuted back and forth to Cordele for work. Our oldest child is in third grade and is able to stay with my mother after school until one of us gets home. Thank goodness for grannies! My youngest is 2 and requires day care, which she attends in Tifton near her father’s work.

Now, in an effort to improve our situation for the long run, we have both begun attending school again. I am driving two to three times a week from Cordele to Tifton for classes at ABAC. Luckily he is able to take classes in Ashburn. This is necessary mileage and gas that we are burning, not optional things we can cut out. My partner’s wages have decreased in the past two years, due to the lack of work. My wages have not increased due to the lack of work. However, our food costs have risen due to fuel surcharges, our day care prices have risen, many of our other bills have risen, and so on. We all are fully aware of the trickle-down effect by now, without me rambling on about it.

Now we are struggling to pay our bills and maintain food and shelter for our family. We no longer go on any family trips, we rarely eat out, shopping is unheard of, well, whoopee we can live without that. The real problem is we are now struggling to pay our bills, pay for our small home, buy gas to go to work, pay for proper care for our children, buy groceries and other life necessities. In reality, many of our bills are slightly behind.

My point of all this rambling is that high gas prices aren’t just cutting out our luxuries. It’s hurting our families. It’s depriving many of us of the necessities. I consider my partner and I lucky, that we aren’t one of those families struggling on minimum wage, because if we were we’d have lost everything by now. The sad truth is is that many families in South Georgia are low-income and are losing everything. I’ve witnessed once strong families lose everything they have. I witnessed my own in-laws lose their trucking business, their home and then my mother-in-law lost her life due to the financial stress on her already compromised health. There are thousands of families with similar situations and worse right now.

High gas prices are driving all prices higher, and many workers are not getting raises to ease or manage this pain. Families aren’t just giving up their vacations, they’re giving up their homes, their cars, their necessities, and sometimes in some cases they’ve given up on themselves and each other. So for the newspapers, television stations and radio stations interviewing the effects of high gas prices on our citizens, find someone with a real answer. It won’t be that hard of a search. I don’t want to hear one more person say that they had to vacation closer to home because of high gas prices. Tell the truth. Let the world know how serious this problem is. Let our lawmakers know the real pain of high gas prices for the working class.

Carrie Kiser

Sycamore