I don’t know what it looked like at Best Buy or Costco or Target, but the line at the PFD office on 7th Avenue Thursday morning wasn’t too long. Most of the dozen or so people waiting in the drizzle for the doors to open had been to the bank already and discovered their PFD checks — $1,305 each — hadn’t been deposited. Faces were grim under hoods. They pulled on their sleeves to cover cold hands.

It was my second year in the line. This year I was writing about it. Last year, my Social Security number was wrong on my application. I had waited with a guy who had a long, emotional story about how his ex-wife might have purposely not mailed his application, so he shouldn’t be held responsible for the fact it didn’t get there by the deadline. Behind us, there had been a guy who lost his check because he owed money, which he didn’t think he owed. And behind him, there was a family of 10 from Vietnam who were expecting to collect enough for a down payment on a house, if only all of the checks would make it to their accounts.

The mood on the sidewalk last year was light. The guy with the ex-wife was a professional of some kind. If he got his check (which he didn’t), he was going to buy a trip somewhere warm. The other guy wanted a flat-screen TV (which he also didn’t get). Mine went to a vacation.

This year the mood was different. People looked worried. They weren’t in the market for fancy televisions or trips Outside. They’d lost jobs. They were about to lose apartments. They had sick kids and broken-down cars and unpaid bills. And, they said, it seemed like everything cost more.

Beth Palmer, a young mother of three, looked stricken. She’d sent off her family’s applications with her Valentine cards, she said, but somehow they’d been lost. She’s a stay-at-home mom. Her husband is a roofer who works six 10-hour shifts. She knows where every dollar goes every month. The PFD was going to give them breathing room. It was going to pay for Christmas, a better-insulated garage door and a little savings to cover medical expenses.

“We’re counting on it,” she said.
Had it been last year, she might have been out of luck. For the last several years, if an application didn’t make it, there was nothing to do but file an appeal, which thousands of people did. This year the rules reverted back to the way they had been. If an application gets lost in the mail, you can sign an affidavit saying it was mailed and you’ll still get your check. It’s a do-over. But you’re only allowed one in a lifetime. When Palmer found out she could re-apply, her eyes teared up with relief.

Renee Whitley waited with her daughter Aimee, who was about to have a baby any day. Aimee is in her early 20s. Bills were due and Renee had planned to buy her daughter a car.

“I have been working hard to get her a car,” she said. “I don’t want my grandchildren on the bus.”
Their problem had to do with giving the wrong account for direct deposit. Aimee’s check was likely coming by mail in a few weeks. That meant they might lose the chance to buy her the used car before the baby was born.

Cally Raymond, a single mom flanked by four girls —Gabrielle, Lizee, Isabella and Maya — leaned against the counter. Her deposit didn’t go through. She didn’t know why, but she was going to drive back to the bank to find out.

“I want a bigger mobile home for my girls,” she told me.
Raymond works as a janitor. She needed all their dividends to make a down payment.
I watched them file out the door. I remembered a Census statistic I’d seen that the number of Anchorage people who fell below the poverty line doubles without the income from the PFD. More than 600,000 people will get their checks this month. I’m sure plenty of them will buy things they don’t need, but this year, at least among those standing in line Thursday morning, it seemed more people than ever depend on the money just to keep afloat.