Atlantic City Sees Increase in Food Stamps Due To Casino Collapse

Atlantic City is one of the biggest tourist attractions on the East Coast and a large number of them frequent Atlantic City’s casinos and provide a significant amount of business for the garden state.

The casino industry along with the tourism industry provides thousands of jobs to Atlantic City residents and enables them to make a living.

The casino industry in Atlantic City has been in decline for the last 16 months and as a result four casinos have been forced to wind up operations and dismiss all of their employees.

More than 8000 casino workers suddenly found themselves with no job and the casino market in Atlantic City was exceptionally slow as the casinos that survived were not looking to hire new staff.

Gaming analysts estimate that this market slump in Atlantic City will most likely continue throughout 2015 and casino workers will have extremely limited job opportunities in Atlantic City. Their best bet at finding new employment in another casino would be to move out of state or to change their line of work and find a new skill.

Most of these laid of casino workers in Atlantic City have decided to remain in New Jersey rather than move out of state. They have been forced to rely on the government for assistance in one form or the other and many of them are currently on food stamps. Harvard University researchers recently conducted a study and confirmed that Atlantic City was rated as one of the poorest areas in New Jersey. More than 300,000 residents in Atlantic City receive assistance from the government, which means that one out of three people in Atlantic City are not capable of taking care of themselves financially.

In a statement, Atlantic County Administrator Jerry Del Rosso said

Hopefully, with these plans, we will help diversify and give opportunities — higher-paying jobs, which require higher types of education, and that will drive some of the individuals in this area to go back for college and aspire for these jobs. That’s the key here.

The Atlantic City gaming commission is currently focusing on mapping out a strategy that will help revive gambling industry and create more jobs. This strategy could take more than a year to bear fruit and till then ex-casino workers in Atlantic City will either have to cut down their standard of living and rely on the government to support them or they will have to change careers, educate themselves and find a new job.