Euquant

While Congress contemplates cutting checks to help Americans sometime this spring, pawn shops have become the ATM for a growing number of cash-strapped consumers.

Mink coats. Gold chains. Tennis bracelets. iPods. Computers. Big-screen flat TVs.

You name it, the folks at local pawn shops have seen it come through the doors in the last month.

January was the largest loan month in Dynasty Jewelry and Loan's 27-year history. Virtually every square inch of the nearly 10,000-square-foot shop in Norcross is jammed with merchandise left by customers.

"We're turning people away, because we don't have room," operations manager Nick Hisoire said.

The first of the year traditionally is busy for pawn shop owners, as people get a triple dose of reality checks —- holiday bills, car and house notes —- in the mail and need quick cash.

The number of people going to pawn shops in the past month has been unusually high, proprietors said.

The housing crisis is only partly to blame. The stock market continues to ricochet wildly. Personal debt among Americans is approaching nearly $1 trillion, according to government data. Bankruptcies are up nationally. In Georgia, they rose 24 percent last year, giving the state the second-highest rate of bankruptcies in the country. Gas, food, utilities continue to rise, creating additional pressures. Credit, once easy to get, has tightened, leaving consumers with few options.

"These are problems that explain why people are hocking jewelry and appliances and other things just to make ends meet," said Thomas "Danny" Boston, professor of economics at Georgia Tech. "It's a real crisis."

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