ATLANTA — It is better than nothing.
That has been the subdued mantra repeated by working Americans in recent weeks as they spend the Bush administration's final tax rebate in an economy racked by soaring gasoline costs, housing foreclosures, toppling banks and Wall Street jitters.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, July 29, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 46 words Type of Material: Correction
Tax rebate: An article in Monday's Section A looking at how Americans have spent their economic stimulus checks and how they feel about the economy said the checks included payments of $300 for each dependent child younger than 16. It should have said younger than 17.
From Atlanta's crowded housing projects to Indiana's sprawling farm fields to San Gabriel's bustling Chinatown, they spend because they have to -- a dispiriting indication of worry, not of consumer confidence.
Those who don't sock their Treasury checks away deplete their modest windfalls on bargain-rate clothes, groceries, utility bills, mortgage payments and gas tanks that increasingly seem to verge on empty.
Atlanta resident Andrew Jenkins received his $600 government check last month, one among the tidal wave of rebates that went out to 130 million U.S. households in May and June.
The rebates, which provided up to $600 per taxpayer, $1,200 for couples and $300 per child younger than 16, are the centerpiece of a $168-billion economic stimulus package that President Bush signed in February -- an effort in line with the tax cuts his administration has tirelessly promoted over his eight years in office as the nation's economy has stalled.
Jenkins, 32, cashed his check soon after it arrived and wasted no time doling it out on the essentials of his hardscrabble life. He spends most mornings slinging breakfast biscuits at a Mrs. Winner's chicken restaurant in Chosewood Park, a neighborhood of projects and small frame houses a few miles south of Atlanta's downtown.
Some of his rebate went to child support for one of his kids. Much of the rest went to two children from another relationship. They needed diapers, haircuts, clothes. What was left went to his mother, who was at wit's end trying to pay her gas and electric bills.
"You feel like you're taking care of things, and that feels all right," Jenkins said. "But you wish you had something for yourself."
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve's "beige book" of economic indicators from around the country portrayed consumer spending as "mixed, weak or slowing." The report, which gleans anecdotal information eight times a year from businesses across the nation, added that retail sales were "subdued" in Atlanta and "grim" in Dallas. Amid falling sales for discretionary items, the lone upbeat note was an uptick in electronics purchases.
