Check’s in the mail, but barely bringing smiles to local faces

LYNN – Worries about gas prices, home foreclosures and the price of food are, for many Lynn residents, outweighing the prospect of soon receiving free money in the mail.The federal checks ranging from $600 for individuals to $1,200 for married couples, plus additional amounts for children, began being mailed last month to 130 million American households.Individuals who do not file tax returns but earn $3,000 or slightly more qualify for a $300 to $600 check while individuals earning over $75,000 or twice that amount probably won’t get a check.Small business owner Ken Corsetti said his check is all but spent.”It will cover about six tanks of gas or the rest of the heating oil bill I need to pay,” he said.Stacy Jordan hopes to have some money left over from her check to pay for a nice dinner.”It will pretty much go to pay bills, bills and bills.”President Bush proposed the “economic stimulus payments” and Congress approved them in hopes of coaxing Americans into priming the nation’s economic pump.Shoppers are expected to focus on catching up on basics like meat and groceries rather than splurging on luxuries.That’s a blow to retailers, which have struggled as shoppers get more careful with their money. Besides soaring gas and food bills, consumers are seeing only meager wage gains, a persistent credit crisis and slumping housing values.”Everything’s higher – food and gas. You ride around neighborhoods and see foreclosure signs,” Jordan said.The number of U.S. homes heading toward foreclosure more than doubled in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to a RealtyTrac Inc. report.Those figures sent Wall Street modestly lower as investors also acted cautiously ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision Wednesday.The Fed, trying to shore up the deteriorating economy without encouraging inflation, is expected to cut its key rate by a quarter of a point, then hold firm for the rest of the year.Joe Gentleman and Dianne Gourdeau barely qualify for the stimulus checks: He earns too much and she is a senior living on a fixed income. But both share the same view about the nation’s economic problems.Gentleman blames current U.S. woes on shifts in the global economic balance, specifically the People’s Republic of China’s emergence. The Lynn resident has been laid off from manufacturing jobs three times in the last 20 years and now works for the state.Gourdeau said any increase she sees in her income goes to offset her housing costs or other necessities.”The government is allowing other countries to take our money. Someone’s got to think of the little people,” she said.