A new law passed by the Elkhart, Ind., City Council has limited residents to one garage sale a month, apparently in response to the growing “nuisance” that they have become.
“I have no other option,” said Todd Baker, who lost his factory job right before his third child was born. “I’m just trying to do as much as I can because the heat bills are going to go up 25 percent this winter, too.” (New York Times, Oct. 11)
The growing number of garage sales is symptomatic of the grim economic times. Elkhart is in one of the regions hit hardest by the current economic crisis. The jobless rate rose over 4.8 percentage points from August 2007 to August 2008. Nearly 10,000 people in the area are out of work, a rate of 9.3 percent.
