How in the world does the average American family survive in this economy? The median household income is a little bit less than $50,000 a year right now. So let’s call that about $4000 a month. But before any of that money gets spent, you have to take out at least $1000 in taxes. That leaves about $3000 a month to pay all the bills with. With that $3000 you have to pay the mortgage (or rent), make the car payments, make the student loan payments, pay for power and water, pay for health insurance, pay for home insurance, pay for car insurance, pay the phone bill, pay the Internet bill and pay the cable bill. On top of all that, every member of the family needs three meals a day and the cars need to be filled up with gasoline or they won’t go anywhere. Of course I haven’t even mentioned expenses that don’t happen every month such as car repairs or new shoes. No wonder so many families are feeling so financially stressed!
The truth is that American families are getting squeezed harder than they have been in ages. The number of good jobs is declining, incomes are going down, and the cost of living just keeps going up.
The following are 17 facts that prove that the average American family is getting absolutely pulverized by this economy….
#1 The cost of a health insurance policy for the average American family rose by a whopping 9 percent last year. According to a report put out by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, the average family health insurance policy now costs over $15,000 a year.
How in the world can most families afford that? Yes, in many cases employers are paying for at least a portion of that, but still that seems absolutely outrageous.
#2 Due to rising costs, a lot of employers are completely getting rid of health plans for their employees. In fact, the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.
#3 The number of uninsured Americans continues to rise. Things have gotten so bad that an all-time record 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all.
#4 At this point, most American families are tapped out financially. According to the U.S. Labor Department, incomes and spending were both down for the second straight year in 2010.
#5 At the same time, the employment picture continues to look worse with each passing month. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of layoffs in the United States was up 14 percent in August.
#6 Even if you do have a job that doesn’t mean that you are doing much more than surviving. According to Paul Osterman, a professor of economics at MIT, approximately 20 percent of all employed Americans are making $10.65 an hour or less.
#7 The amount of debt that the average American family has piled up is absolutely staggering. The median yearly wage in the United States is just $26,261, but the average American household is carrying $75,600 in debt.
#8 Consumer confidence is extremely low right now. If the U.S. economy was in good shape, the Consumer Confidence Index would be up around 90. Instead, it is sitting at 45.4.
#9 Nearly every recent survey shows that the American people are feeling really depressed about the economy right now. In fact, one poll found that 80 percent of them believe that we are actually in a recession right now.
#10 Many consumers are seriously starting to cut back on spending again, and that is not a good sign for the U.S. economy. According to one recent study, 40 percent of all Americans have cut back on their spending within the last 60 days.
#11 It certainly does not help that millions of good jobs have been shipped out of the country. Sadly, the trend of offshoring our jobs is going to continue to accelerate if something is not done. According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades.
#12 There is a lot of fear in the workforce right now. According to Gallup, 30 percent of all employed Americans are worried that they will be laid off soon.
#13 Today, there are 5.9 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 that are living with their parents. That is putting an even greater strain on the budgets of many families.
#14 American families have gotten very accustomed to using plastic to pay for things. Today, the average U.S. household has 13 different credit cards.
#15 Many American families are not making it at all in this economy. Last year, 2.6 million more Americans dropped into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.
#16 For many American families, living on food stamps has become a way of life. Today, there are more than 45 million Americans on food stamps and we keep setting a brand new record almost every single month.
#17 Things have gotten so bad that many American families are selling off whatever they can in order to survive. For example, down in Florida hundreds of people have been selling off their burial plots in an attempt to raise cash. The following is an excerpt from a local news report about this new trend….
Sellers are posting online, using burial plot brokers, and also funeral homes to market the real estate. Some of those advertisements show single plots starting at about $1,000, while family plots can go for up to $50,000.
Most American families are living in a state of almost constant financial stress. Way too many parents are spending way too many sleepless nights wondering how in the world they will be able to keep their heads above water for another month.
Very few families seem to have “extra money” for stuff these days. Yeah, there are the “privileged few”, but most people are really struggling to get by.
In America today, if you are able to keep your home from being foreclosed and you are able to put food on the table and clothes on the backs of your family then you are doing pretty good.
Sadly, as our current economic crisis deepens, the average American family is going to have an even more difficult time trying to survive financially.
So do you have any tips to share for how the average American family can survive in this very tough economy? Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts below….
According to a brand new Gallup poll, 80 percent of Americans believe that we are in a recession right now. Of course the government insists that the recession ended quite some time ago, but apparently the message is not sinking in. Not only that, most Americans also do not believe that things are going to get better any time soon. According to the Gallup poll, 61 percent of Americans believe that the economy will be the same as it is right now or will be even worse one year from now. Two years ago, only 35 percent of Americans felt that way. Talk about pessimism! So are we depressed as a nation? Have too many people been reading the Economic Collapse Blog? How do we account for such strange numbers?
Certainly there are some areas of the country that are still doing quite well. If you live in an area that is closely tied to the federal government (Washington D.C.), the big Wall Street banks (New York) or corporate America (Silicon Valley, etc.), then you can go out on the weekends and find packed restaurants and mall parking lots that are overflowing.
But most of the rest of the country is really hurting.
Tonight, there are millions upon millions of Americans that won’t sleep well at all because they are trying to figure out how to get back on their feet. It can be really tough to keep going when you have been searching for work for years and still nobody will hire you. If you have a family, it is easy to feel like a failure when you have to look your spouse and your children in the eyes day after day knowing that they are depending on you.
If you have never been through it, then you should not mock those that are depressed because they cannot find work. Losing a good job and not being able to find another one can be an absolutely soul-crushing experience.
So why do 80 percent of Americans believe that we are in a recession right now?
Well, it is because that is what it feels like for most people.
For example, a reader identified as Carol recently shared the following with us….
My unemployment ends the end of December, yes, I will be one of the 99′ers, one that did not sit at home and eat potato chips, drink soda and watch TV. I have no health insurance, I support myself and cannot afford it. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis last fall. Not to mention, degenerative disc disease, and osteoporosis. But I have continued to pursue work and regain employment, despite my health. I have no other choice but to fight and PRAY!
It amazes me at the stupidity of the general population, who still have their heads in the sand. The majority have no idea what is actually going on in our country on the political or economic side.
What would you do if you found out you were sick, you had no job, no health insurance and you were rapidly running out of money?
Please pray for those that are out of work. You never know when it will be you that needs some assistance.
For those that still believe that the economy is doing “great”, let’s review some of the cold, hard facts….
*46.2 million Americans were living in poverty in 2010.
*The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 2.6 million last year. That was the largest increase since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.
*49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all.
*The percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.
*More than 45 million Americans (a new all-time record) are on food stamps.
If you are still doing really well, be thankful for that. Don’t use the fact that you are on top of the hill as an opportunity to look down on others.
Unfortunately, as I talked about in a recent article, the U.S. economy continues to get even worse.
It certainly does not help that we continue to see millions of jobs shipped overseas. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are proposing anything that will stop the bleeding.
A lot of very skilled Americans are being put out of work by all of this offshoring. For example, a reader identified as GlennA recently shared the following with us….
Yes, lurking in the shadows, that’s been me. A professional man with a master’s degree in a technical who has not worked at a full-time job with benefits since mid 2009. Spent my last 2 years with the company offshoring to India all my team’s work. I hear through the grapevine that quality there has gone completely off a cliff, but profits are OK.
Have had only sporadic benefitless contract work ever since, and am now down to my last few bucks.
All of the horrible natural disasters that we have experienced this year are not helping things either. As I have written about previously, in many ways this has been the worst year for natural disasters in modern U.S. history.
In a recent article for Newsday, Jennifer Wheary described the impact these horrible natural disasters have had on many areas of the country that were already facing tough economic times….
But after decades of disappearing jobs, declining wages and increasing expenses, this is no longer the case. As a result, people across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, the Carolinas, Texas and elsewhere lack the savings needed to weather these unexpected economic shocks. Well before the spate of recent bad weather, or the recent recession, millions of middle- and working-class families were already under water.
Right now, even the vast majority of American families that still do have jobs are barely scraping by. At this point, “financial security” is just a far off dream for most Americans.
So what are our leaders doing about this?
Well, as I have written about previously, the Obama jobs plan is a complete joke. It is really quite sad if that was his best shot. His plan would spend a lot of money, but just like the last “stimulus plan”, it would not create many jobs at all.
The Federal Reserve has decided that it better jump into action again. The Federal Reserve has just announced that it is going to sell $400 billion of its short-term U.S. Treasuries and will use that money to buy $400 billion of long-term U.S. Treasuries. The Fed is hoping that this will lower interest rates on mortgages and home loans and will help to spur the economy.
So will this fix our economic problems? No, it will have even less of an impact than QE2 did. But the Fed wants to at least appear as if it is trying to do something.
The Federal Reserve has also pledged an “unlimited” amount of dollars to help bail out big European banks in October, November and December.
It is quite frustrating that virtually nobody in the mainstream media seems upset that the Federal Reserve is going to be showering European banks with cheap loans. Apparently they must all think that this is a wonderful idea, or perhaps they are just too preoccupied with talking about “The X Factor”.
In any event, it does look like the global financial system may need some propping up very soon. Yesterday, I shared 21 signs that the financial world is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Well, here are a couple more….
Right now, corporate insiders are selling 7 dollars of stock for every 1 dollar of stock that they are buying.
That is a very troubling sign.
Another troubling sign is that Moody’s has just downgraded the credit ratings of Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.
The last time we saw so much financial chaos was back in 2008.
We all remember what happened back then.
At this point, things are still so bad that 80 percent of Americans believe that we are still in a recession.
So what are things going to look like if there is another major financial crash in the coming months?
Will we soon see millions more Americans going dumpster diving as they hunt for something to eat?
Will we see even more tent cities start popping up all over the nation?
Will we see even more elderly people freeze in their own homes because they can’t afford to heat them?
Already, more than one out of every five children in the United States is living in poverty.
How much worse can things get?
Unfortunately, they can get a lot worse.
If you think that Americans are depressed now, just wait and see what happens after the next financial crisis.
This country is going to become unglued in a major way.
Buckle up and hold on tight because it is going to be a bumpy ride.
America is getting poorer. The U.S. government has just released a bunch of new statistics about poverty in America, and once again this year the news is not good. According to a special report from the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.2 million Americans are now living in poverty. The number of those living in poverty in America has grown by 2.6 million in just the last 12 months, and that is the largest increase that we have ever seen since the U.S. government began calculating poverty figures back in 1959. Not only that, median household income has also fallen once again. In case you are keeping track, that makes three years in a row. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in the United States dropped 2.3% in 2010 after accounting for inflation. Overall, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation since December 2007. So should we be excited that our incomes are going down and that a record number of Americans slipped into poverty last year? Should we be thrilled that the economic pie is shrinking and that our debt levels are exploding? All of those that claimed that the U.S. economy was recovering and that everything was going to be just fine have some explaining to do.
Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty. Today, 15.1% of all Americans are living in poverty. The last time the poverty level was this high was back in 1993.
However, it is important to keep in mind that the government definition of poverty rises based on the rate of inflation. If inflation was still calculated the way that it was 30 or 40 years ago, the poverty line would be much, much higher and millions more Americans would be considered to be living in poverty.
So why is poverty in America exploding? Who is getting hurt the most? How is America being changed by this? What is the future going to look like if we remain on the current path?
Let’s take a closer look at poverty in America….
The Shrinking Number Of Jobs
Unemployment is rampant and the number of good jobs continues to shrink. Once upon a time in America, if you really wanted a job you could go out and get one. Today, competition for even the lowest paying jobs has become absolutely brutal. There simply are not enough chairs at the “economic table”, and not being able to get a good job is pushing large numbers of Americans into poverty…..
*There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million people to the population since then.
*Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.
*According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if you factored in all of the short-term discouraged workers, all of the long-term discouraged workers and all of those working part-time because they cannot find full-time employment, the real unemployment rate right now would be approximately 23 percent.
*If you have been unemployed for at least one year, there is a 91 percent chance that you will not find a new job within the next month.
The Working Poor
The number of low income jobs is rising while the number of high income jobs is falling. This has created a situation where the number of “the working poor” in America is absolutely skyrocketing. Millions of Americans are working as hard as they can and yet they still cannot afford to lead a middle class lifestyle.
*Since the year 2000, we have lost approximately 10% of our middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.
*Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
*Between 1969 and 2009, the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation.
*According to a report released in February from the National Employment Law Project, higher wage industries are accounting for 40 percent of the job losses in America but only 14 percent of the job growth. Lower wage industries are accounting for just 23 percent of the job losses but 49 percent of the job growth.
*Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
*Last year, 19.7% of all U.S. working adults had jobs that would not have been enough to push a family of four over the poverty line even if they had worked full-time hours for the entire year.
*The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.
Unprecedented Dependence On The Government
Because they cannot get good jobs that will enable them to support themselves and their families, millions of Americans that used to be hard working contributors to society are now dependent on government handouts. Nearly every single measure of government dependence is at a record high, and there are no signs that things are going to turn around any time soon.
*One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one government anti-poverty program.
*Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment benefits. That number is almost four times larger than it was back in 2007.
*More than 45 million Americans are now on food stamps. The number of Americans on food stamps has increased 74% since 2007.
*Approximately one-third of the entire population of Alabama is now on food stamps.
*More than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid.
*Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
*In 1980, just 11.7% of all personal income came from government transfer payments. Today, 18.4% of all personal income comes from government transfer payments.
The Suffocating Cost Of Health Care
Millions of American families are being financially crippled by health care costs. The U.S. health care system is deeply, deeply broken and Obamacare is going to make things even worse. Health care is one of the top reasons why American families get pushed into poverty. Most of us are just one major illness or disease from becoming financially wrecked. Just ask anyone that has gone through it. The health insurance companies do not care about you and they will try to wiggle out of their obligations at the time when you need them the most. If you talk to people that have been through bankruptcy, most of them will tell you that medical bills were at least partially responsible.
*In America today, there are 49.9 million Americans that do not have any health insurance. One single medical bill could easily wipe out the finances of most of those people.
*Only 56 percent of Americans are currently covered by employer-provided health insurance.
*According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States. Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.
*According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
More Children Living In Poverty
The United States has a child poverty rate that is more than twice as high as many European nations. We like to think that we have “the greatest economy on earth”, but the reality is that we have one of the highest child poverty rates and it increased once again last year.
*The poverty rate for children living in the United States increased to 22% in 2010. That means that tonight more than one out of every five U.S. children is living in poverty.
*It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.
*More than 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry.
*It is estimated that up to half a million children may currently be homeless in the United States.
The Plight Of The Elderly
The elderly are also falling into poverty in staggering numbers. They may not be out protesting in the streets, but that does not mean that they are not deeply, deeply suffering.
*One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.
*Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.
*The Baby Boomers have only just begun to retire, and already our social programs for seniors are starting to fall apart. In 1950, each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 U.S. workers. According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now only 1.75 full-time private sector workers for each person that is receiving Social Security benefits in the United States.
Squeezed By Inflation
Rising inflation is squeezing the budgets of average American families like never before. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke claims that inflation is still low, but either he is delusional or he has not been to a supermarket lately.
Personally, I do a lot of grocery shopping at a number of different stores, and without a doubt prices are absolutely soaring. Many of the new “sale prices” are exactly what the old “regular prices” were just a few weeks ago.
Some companies have tried to hide these price increases by shrinking package sizes. But there is no hiding the pain on the old wallet once you fill up your cart with what you need to feed your family.
*Over the past year, the global price of food has risen by 37 percent and this has pushed approximately 44 million more people around the world into poverty.
*U.S. consumers will spend approximately $491 billion on gas this year. That is going to be a brand new all-time record.
*Right now, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States is $3.649. That is 94 cents higher than 12 months earlier and it is a brand new record for this time of the year.
A Smaller Share Of The Pie
The size of the “economic pie” in America is shrinking, and the share of the pie for those that are poor is shrinking a lot faster than the share of the pie for those that are wealthy.
*According to the Washington Post, the average yearly income of the bottom 90 percent of all U.S. income earners is now just $31,244.
*When you look at the ratio of employee compensation to GDP, it is now the lowest that is has been in about 50 years.
*At this point, the poorest 50% of all Americans now control just 2.5% of all of the wealth in this country.
*Big corporations are even recognizing the change that is happening to America. Just consider the following example from a recent article in the Huffington Post….
Manufacturers like Procter & Gamble, the household-goods giant responsible for everything from Charmin and Old Spice to Tide, are concentrating their efforts on luxury and bargain items, putting less emphasis on products aimed at the middle class, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Conclusion
America is fundamentally changing. We were a nation that had the largest middle class in the history of the globe, but now we are becoming a nation that is deeply divided between the haves and the have nots.
Perhaps you are still doing fine. But don’t think that economic disaster cannot strike you. Every single day, thousands more Americans will lose their jobs or will discover a major health problem. Every single day, thousands more Americans will lose their homes or will be forced to take a pay cut.
If you still have a warm, comfortable home to sleep in, you should be thankful. Poverty is a very sneaky enemy and it can strike at any time. If you are not careful, you might be the next American to end up sleeping in your car or living in a tent city.
It is easy to disregard a couple of statistics, but can you really ignore the vast amount of evidence presented above?
It is undeniable that America is getting poorer. Poverty is spreading and hopelessness and despair are rising. There is a reason why the economy is the number one political issue right now. Millions upon millions of Americans are in deep pain and they want some solutions.
Unfortunately, it appears quite unlikely that either major political party is going to offer any real solutions any time soon. So things are going to keep getting worse and worse and worse.
Should we just keep doing the same things that we have been doing over and over and over and yet keep expecting different results?
What we are doing right now is not working. We are in the midst of a long-term economic decline. Both major political parties have been fundamentally wrong about the economy. It is time to admit that.
If we continue on this path, poverty in America is going to continue to get a lot worse. Millions of families will be torn apart and millions of lives will be destroyed.
All over America tonight, millions of elderly Americans are wondering if their money is going to run out before it is time for them to die. Those that are now past retirement age are not going to be rioting in the streets, but that doesn’t mean that large numbers of them are not deeply suffering. There are millions of elderly Americans that are leading lives of “quiet desperation” as they try to get by on meager fixed incomes. Many are surviving on Ramen noodles, oatmeal, peanut butter or whatever other cheap food they can find in the stores. There are some that are so short on cash that they will not turn on the heat in their homes until things get really desperate. As health care costs soar, millions of elderly Americans find themselves deep in debt and facing huge medical bills that they cannot possibly pay. A lot of older Americans would go back to work if they could, but jobs are scarce and very few companies seem to even want to consider hiring them. Right now caring for all of the Americans that have already retired is turning out to be an overwhelming challenge, and things are about to get a whole lot worse. On January 1st, 2011 the very first Baby Boomers turned 65. A massive tsunami of retirees is coming, and America is not ready for it.
Sadly, most retirees have not adequately prepared for retirement. For many, the recent economic downturn absolutely devastated their retirement plans. Many were counting on the equity in their homes, but the recent housing crash crushed those dreams. Others had their 401ks shredded by the stock market.
Meanwhile, corporate pension plans all across America are vastly underfunded. Many state and local government pension programs are absolute disasters. The federal government has already begun to pay out significantly more in Social Security benefits than they are taking in, and the years ahead are projected to be downright apocalyptic for the Social Security program.
So needless to say, things do not look good for the Baby Boomers that are now approaching retirement age.
The following are 21 signs that the new reality for many Baby Boomers will be to work as wage slaves until they drop dead….
#1 According to a shocking AARP survey of Baby Boomers that are still in the workforce, 40 percent of them plan to work “until they drop”.
#2 A recent survey of American workers that included all age groups found that 54 percent of them planned to keep working when they retire and 39 percent of them plan to either work past age 70 or never retire at all.
#3 A poll conducted by CESI Debt Solutions found that 56 percent of American retirees still had outstanding debts when they retired.
#4 A recent study by a law professor from the University of Michigan found that Americans that are 55 years of age or older now account for 20 percent of all bankruptcies in the United States. Back in 2001, they only accounted for 12 percent of all bankruptcies.
#5 Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.
#6 Most of the bankruptcies among the elderly are caused by our deeply corrupt health care system. According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States. Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.
#7 The U.S. government now says that the Medicare trust fund will run dry five years faster than they were projecting just last year.
#8 Starting on January 1st, 2011 the Baby Boomers began to hit retirement age. From now on, every single day more than 10,000 Baby Boomers will reach the age of 65. That is going to keep happening every single day for the next 19 years.
#9 Over 30 percent of all U.S. investors currently in their sixties have more than 80 percent of their 401k retirement plans invested in equities. So what happens if the stock market crashes again?
#10 All over the United States predatory lenders are coldly and cruelly foreclosing on elderly homeowners. You can read what one lender is doing to a 70-year-old woman and her terminally ill husband right here.
#11 Medical bills are absolutely devastating large number of elderly Americans right now. Many are going to great lengths to try to pay their bills. An elderly woman that lives in the Salem, Oregon area that is fighting terminal bone cancer tried to raise some money for her medical bills by holding a few garage sales on the weekends. However, a neighbor ratted her out, and so now the police are shutting her garage sales down.
#12 Social Security’s disability program has already been pushed to the brink of insolvency and wave after wave of new applications continue to pour in.
#13 Approximately 3 out of every 4 Americans start claiming Social Security benefits the moment they are eligible at age 62. Most are doing this out of necessity. However, by claiming Social Security early they get locked in at a much lower amount than if they would have waited.
#14 According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security system paid out more in benefits than it received in payroll taxes in 2010. That was not supposed to happen until at least 2016. Sadly, in the years ahead these “Social Security deficits” are scheduled to become absolutely nightmarish as hordes of Baby Boomers retire.
#15 In 1950, each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 U.S. workers. In 2010, each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by approximately 3.3 U.S. workers. By 2025, it is projected that there will be approximately two U.S. workers for each retiree. How in the world can the system possibly continue to function properly with numbers like that?
#16According to a shocking U.S. government report, soaring interest costs on the U.S. national debt plus rapidly escalating spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare will absorb approximately 92 cents of every single dollar of federal revenue by the year 2019. That is before a single dollar is spent on anything else.
#17 Most states have huge pension liabilities that are woefully underfunded. For example, pension consultant Girard Miller recently told California’s Little Hoover Commission that state and local government bodies in the state of California have $325 billion in combined unfunded pension liabilities. When you break that down, it comes to $22,000 for every single working adult in the state of California.
#18 Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Chicago and Joshua D. Rauh of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management recently calculated the combined pension liability for all 50 U.S. states. What they found was that the 50 states are collectively facing $5.17 trillion in pension obligations, but they only have $1.94 trillion set aside in state pension funds. That is a difference of 3.2 trillion dollars. So where in the world is all of that extra money going to come from? Most of the states are already completely broke and on the verge of bankruptcy.
#21 Even though prices for necessities such as food and gas have been exploding, those receiving Social Security benefits have not received a cost of living increase for two years in a row. Many elderly Americans that are living on fixed incomes are being squeezed like they have never been squeezed before.
There are millions of Americans out there that have done everything “right” all of their lives, but that now find the system letting them down in their golden years.
So how badly are some people hurting? Well, a reader identified as “Anna44″ recently shared with us what some of her family members have been going through in this economy….
My B-I-L was a dealership owner/manager who worked long hours over 38 years and had to close his doors when Saturn was dissolved. When his dealership went under, 72 others lost their job. That’s 72 families who took a hit. He lost his home, everything. A few of his former employees lost their homes as well eventually. They were not lazy or WORTHLESS. It took him a year and a half to finally find something, but now he lives in a hotel unable to qualify for a house or apartment. This is an educated man who competed nationwide for top dog and got it more then once. His biggest fault? He’s almost 60, young enough to need the work, but too old to be hired.
As for my husband- 26 years AF officer, handling millions & billions on International & National levels has just entered his 7th month of unemployment. Two tours abroad- lazy he is NOT. He doesn’t qualify for unemployment, nor is he counted because he gets a retirement check. He wants and needs to work- yet there is little out there. If he doesn’t find something soon, we too will lose the home we sunk every cent into after 20 years of saving for it!
These are Americans that should be getting ready to enjoy their golden years, but that are now fighting just to survive.
Today you will find a disturbingly large number of elderly Americans flipping burgers or welcoming people to Wal-Mart. But most of them are not doing it because they are bored with retirement. Rather, most of them are working as wage slaves because that is what they have to do in order to survive.
Sadly, there are a whole lot of companies out there that do not want to hire people that are past a certain age. If you are older than 50, there are a lot of jobs that you should just basically forget about applying for.
Instead of valuing the experience and wisdom of our elders, our society openly makes fun of them and treats them as undesirables.
If you are afraid of getting old, you are not being irrational. Getting old is indeed something to fear in this society. We tend to treat elderly Americans like garbage.
Abuse of the elderly is rampant. For example, a report from a couple of years ago found that 94 percent of all nursing homes in the United States had committed violations of federal health and safety standards.
As the U.S. economy continues to crumble, the way we treat the elderly is probably going to get even worse.
Right now there is tons of bad news about the economy, and another major economic downturn would put even more pressure on federal, state and local government budgets.
The truth is that there is simply no way that we can keep all of the financial promises that we have made to elderly Americans even if the most optimistic projections for our economy play out.
If the worst happens, we are going to see a lot more elderly Americans eating out of trash cans and freezing to death in their own homes.
The United States is facing a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude. A comfortable, happy retirement is rapidly going to become a luxury that only the wealthy will enjoy.
For most of the rest of us, our golden years are going to mean a whole lot of pain and suffering.
That may not be pleasant to hear, but that is the truth.
According to a whole host of polls and surveys, the American people are incredibly angry right now. The American people are hopping mad at the government, the American people are hopping mad about the economy and the American people are hopping mad about the direction that this country is headed. Never before in modern U.S. history have the American people been this angry. There is vast disagreement about what the solutions to our problems actually are, but what everyone can agree on is that the American people are absolutely seething with anger right now. The statistics that you are about to read are mind blowing. We used to be such a happy country. Once upon a time we were one of the happiest places on earth. But as the economy has fallen to pieces anger has been steadily growing. If something is not done to turn the economy around eventually this anger is going to erupt in frightening and unpredictable ways.
The American people are not equipped to handle hard times. We are incredibly spoiled. Most of us have only known good times, and most of us have been taught that we will have endless prosperity all of our lives because we live in the greatest nation on earth.
Well, “the greatest nation on earth” is about to get a massive wake up call. We are up to our eyeballs in debt and we are bleeding jobs, businesses and wealth at an astounding pace. Our economy is dying right in front of our eyes, and most Americans have been so “dumbed-down” that they don’t even realize what is happening.
But what most Americans do know is that things are “bad” and they want someone to “fix” things. They know that something is “not right” and they want things to go back to the way things used to be. The longer it takes for things to return to “normal”, the angrier they are going to get.
The following are 16 statistics which prove that the American people are absolutely seething with anger right now….
#1 A new Washington Post poll has found that a whopping 78 percent of Americans are dissatisfied “with the way this country’s political system is working”.
#2 That same poll found that only 26 percent of Americans believe that the federal government can solve the economic problems that we are now facing.
#4 According to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, Congress has a disapproval rating of 82%.
#5 A new Rasmussen survey has found that 85 percent of Americans believe that members of Congress “are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping other people.”
#6 That same survey found that 46 percent of the American people believe that most members of Congress are corrupt. That figure was a new all-time high.
#7 According to a different Rasmussen survey, only 17 percent of Americans now believe that the U.S. government has the consent of the governed.
#8 A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll discovered that 73 percent of the American people believe that the nation is “on the wrong track”.
#9 A recent poll taken by Rasmussen found that 68 percent of Americans believe that we are actually in a recession right now.
#10 According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans that lack confidence in U.S. banks is now at an all-time high of 36%.
#11 U.S. consumer confidence is now at its lowest level in 30 years.
#13 That same poll found that approximately 80 percent of Americans believe that it is “difficult” to find a job these days.
#14 According to one recent poll, 39 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy has now entered a “permanent decline”.
#15 Another recent survey found that 48 percent of Americans believe that it is likely that another great Depression will begin within the next 12 months.
#16 According to a brand new Rasmussen survey, 48% of Americans believe that reductions in government spending are “at least somewhat likely” to result in civil unrest inside the United States.
So why doesn’t the government step in and spend a whole bunch of money and make everything all better?
Well, the problem is that we have done this time after time before and now we are broke.
We have been living way, way beyond our means for decades and now the bills are coming due.
David Walker, the former Comptroller General of the United States, has been warning about our debt problem for years. Walker says that the United States is heading for a “sudden and very painful” economic collapse….
“Here’s the bottom line. If you take the total liabilities of the United States – public debt, unfunded pensions, retiree health care, under funding with regard to social security, with regard to medicare, a range of commitments and contingencies – as of September 30 2010 we would have had to have had $61.6 trillion dollars in the bank in order to be able to defease those obligations.”
The cold, hard truth is that the U.S. national debt should have been addressed many years ago when it was still relatively small.
At this point, there is no solution to our national debt problem under our current financial system.
Most state governments are also facing huge financial problems. The state government of Illinois is so broke at this point that it can’t even afford to bury the poor people that are dying.
But Illinois is not alone. All over the country, state and local governments have been implementing austerity measures.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, state and local governments have slashed more than half a million jobs since August 2008.
That is a whole lot of good jobs that aren’t there anymore.
But government debt is not the only debt problem that we are facing. Personal debt is also a raging crisis.
According to USDebtClock.org, the total amount of personal debt in the United States is now over 16 trillion dollars. The exploding levels of personal debt have created a tremendous amount of stress in households from coast to coast.
When I was growing up, it seemed like almost everyone was in the middle class. But today the middle class is shrinking at lightning speed.
According to author David DeGraw, 17.3% of all Americans were living in poverty during 2009. Not only that, DeGraw also says that 9 major U.S. cities have a poverty rate of over 25 percent.
Can you imagine that?
In fact, there are some cities such as Detroit where the poverty rate is over 35 percent.
It is hard to believe what is happening to America. Today, there are over 45 million Americans on food stamps. That number has increased by approximately 12 percent in the last year alone.
There are currently 34 million Americans that need a full-time job. Unemployment is rampant and there is intense competition even for part-time jobs that pay minimum wage.
So where did all of the jobs go?
Well, as I have written about previously, globalism is absolutely devastating our economy. Millions of our jobs have been shipped to countries where labor is far, far cheaper and they aren’t coming back.
In addition, millions of Americans that do still have jobs are also deeply struggling right now. There are millions and millions of Americans that are working part-time jobs because that is all that they can find right now. Millions of other Americans are flat broke and are discovering that their paychecks are “shrinking” due to inflation. Wages have barely risen while prices for food and other necessities are skyrocketing.
Most families are really struggling to get by right now.
According to the Washington Post, the average yearly income of the bottom 90 percent of U.S. income earners is $31,244.
It is really hard to pay a mortgage and feed a family on that income.
The only people that seem to be doing well are at the very top.
The average yearly income of the top 0.1% of U.S. income earners is 5.6 million dollars.
Not that making money is a bad thing, but when an economic system funnels all of the rewards to the very top you know something is deeply broken.
The poorest 50% of all Americans now own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
A lot of poor Americans have literally fallen off the map. The Daily Mail recently did a feature on one tent city that has been constructed deep in a forest in New Jersey….
In scenes reminiscent of the Great Depression these are the ramshackle homes of the desperate and destitute U.S. families who have set up their own ‘Tent City’ only an hour from Manhattan.
More than 50 homeless people have joined the community within New Jersey’s forests as the economic crisis has wrecked their American dream.
You can see shocking pictures of this tent city right here.
So it is no wonder why so many Americans are so angry.
If you lost your job or your home you would probably be angry too.
Most Americans just want to be able to go to work, make a decent living, pay the mortgage and provide for their families.
But in America today that is becoming increasingly difficult to do.
Our economy is a giant mess and the American people are becoming very angry.
If the economy gets even worse, they are going to become even angrier.
The crumbling U.S. economy is putting an extraordinary amount of financial stress on American families. For many Americans, “flat broke” has become a permanent condition. Today, over half of all American families live paycheck to paycheck. Unemployment is rampant and those that do actually have jobs are finding that their wages are rising much more slowly than prices are. The financial condition of average American families continues to decline and this is showing up in all of the recent surveys. For example, according to a new Gallup poll, “lack of money/low wages” is the number one financial concern for American families. To make ends meet, many American families are going into even more debt and more American families than ever are turning to government assistance. Right now, more Americans than at any other point since World War II are flat broke and have lost hope. Until this changes, the frustration level in this country is going to continue to grow.
The following are 10 facts about the financial condition of American families that will blow your mind…..
#1 Only 58 percent of Americans have a job right now.
#2 Only 56 percent of Americans are currently covered by employer-provided health insurance.
#3 The median yearly wage in the United States is $26,261.
#4 The average American household is carrying $75,600 in debt.
#5Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
#6 At this point, American families are approximately 7.7 trillion dollars poorer than they were back in early 2007.
#7 The poorest 50% of all Americans now own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
#10According to Newsweek, close to 20 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 54 do not have a job at the moment.
So what is causing all of this?
Where in the world did all of the good jobs go?
Well, the truth is that millions of them have been shipped overseas.
Our politicians promised us that merging our economy with the economies of other nations where it is legal to pay slave labor wages to workers would not create more unemployment inside America.
They were dead wrong.
Now we are being told that we just need to accept a lower standard of living.
For example, billionaire Howard Marks says that it is time for all of us to just accept that the standard of living of American workers is inevitably going to decline to the level of the rest of the world….
“In addition to balancing the budget and growing the economy, I think we have to accept that the coming decades are likely to see U.S. standards of living decline relative to the rest of the world. Unless our goods offer a better cost/benefit bargain, there’s no reason why American workers should continue to enjoy the same lifestyle advantage over workers in other countries. I just don’t expect to hear many politicians own up to this reality on the stump.”
Are you willing to accept that?
Well, most Americans appear to be willing to accept this “new reality” because they keep sending most of the exact same bozos back to Washington D.C.
Meanwhile, the job losses continue to get worse. As I wrote about the other day, as the U.S. economy has started to slow down again we are starting to see another huge wave of layoffs all over America.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where all of our jobs are going. But unfortunately, most Americans don’t understand what is happening because neither the mainstream media nor our politicians are telling them the truth.
But it is not just the globalization of the economy that is destroying our jobs.
The federal government bureaucracy has become so oppressive that it is amazing that anyone is still willing to hire workers in this day and age.
Hiring workers has become so complicated and so expensive that many small business owners want to avoid it at all cost.
For example, a small business owner identified as “007” recently left the following comment on one of my recent articles….
Speaking as a small employer, I would rather have a root canal than another employee. Let’s see. You first have to hire someone you trust without some labor lawyer suing you for some type of discrimination. Then you have OSHA to make sure your work place is safe. Then you have workmans compensation insurance, unemployment taxes, health insurance, liability insurance, now Obamacare. Oh be careful not to be deemed to have a “hostile work environment”. Then you have to negotiate the labor laws. The Department of Labor is constantly cranking out regulation.
Then you get the pleasure of paying payroll taxes both state and federal along with the required filing of a multitude of payroll forms. Miss filing or paying these taxes and you will be crushed with interest and penalties.
Of course, you are competing with businesses that can hire at a fraction of the cost of American Labor and with very little regulations. In this economy, no one in their right mind is hiring into this unstable and declining economy.
If business turns down all you have to worry about is laying off workers. Of course your unemployment insurance tax will go up 200% for years. Then you only have to then worry about a wrongful termination law suit.
The entire system is stacked against American workers.
If you are a blue collar worker, you should give up hope that things are going to get better. The system has failed you.
You can stop waiting for the “good jobs” to come back.
They aren’t coming back.
That is one reason why I try to encourage everyone to become more independent of the system.
As our economic system continues to degenerate, Americans are going to become increasingly desperate.
Sadly, desperate people do desperate things. Already we are starting to see signs that the fabric of American society is starting to be ripped to shreds.
So what is going to happen if the economy gets even worse?
There is a limit to how many people we can actually put in prison. The reality is that the number of Americans in prison has nearly tripled since 1987.
Our prisons are already dangerously overcrowded. As society falls apart, many communities will simply not be able to shove more people behind bars.
Even with our prisons stuffed to the gills, many of our largest cities continue to be transformed into absolute hellholes.
Well, they appear to be too busy fighting with each other and cheating on their wives to do much about our problems.
According to Politico, U.S. Representative David Wu is the latest member of Congress to be accused of a sex scandal….
Rep. David Wu has been accused of an “unwanted sexual encounter” with the teenage daughter of a longtime friend, the latest scandal to engulf the troubled Oregon Democrat.
This country is a complete and total mess. Tens of millions of American families are flat broke and are about to slip into poverty. Meanwhile, our politicians continue to prove that they are some of the most corrupt on the planet.
There are many out there that still believe that America has a bright future ahead.
It is getting really hard to see why anyone could possibly believe that.
More Americans than ever are desperate for money and many of them will do just about anything to get it. The crumbling U.S. economy has pushed millions of ordinary Americans to the brink of utter desperation. When it comes time to choose between being able to survive or breaking the law, many people are choosing to break the law. These days it seems like Americans will do just about anything for money. All over the country, there are areas where just about anything that is not bolted down is being stolen. A lot of people have resorted to making money however they can – selling drugs, selling their bodies, shoplifting, invading homes, taking bribes, running credit card scams and even stealing from their own family members. You will have a hard time believing some of the things that you are about to read below. When people have their backs pushed up against the wall, often they find that they are willing to do things that they never imagined that they would do. Things are getting crazy out there on the streets of America, and as the economy continues to decline things are going to get a lot crazier.
The following are 15 examples that show many Americans have become so desperate that they will do just about anything for money….
#1 In Utah, one unemployed 28 year old man is offering to be “human prey” for hunters for the bargain price of $10,000. For an additional $2,000, he will let people hunt him down while he is running around naked.
Across the country, in states like Illinois, Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Florida, there have been reports of thieves stealing unsecured air conditioning units weighing as much as 125 pounds.
#4 Even police officers are committing desperate acts these days. Just check out what one police officer in Chicago is charged with doing….
A Chicago Police officer stole $50,000 from his ailing elderly father to pay off his bills and gambling debts and unsuccessfully attempted to swipe his dad’s retirement savings by impersonating him
#6 In another area of Atlanta, thieves have been breaking down walls and busting bathroom fixtures with sledgehammers in order to get their hands on copper, brass and steel….
Kids in two Atlanta communities won’t have their neighborhood pools to help beat the summer heat, at least for now. Thieves used what is believed to be sledge hammers to bust walls and break fixtures in bathrooms at Adams and South Bend parks to steal copper, brass and steel.
#7 One grandmother in Florida has been accused of trying to sell her newborn grandson for $75,000.
#8 In Antioch, California a total of approximately 300 power poles were recently knocked down by thieves and stripped of their copper wiring.
#9 In Minnesota recently, a mob of teen girls brutally pummeled a mother and her two daughters until they were black and blue. Apparently the mob of teen girls was enraged over a pair of missing sunglasses.
#10 In Asheville, North Carolina thieves recently took off with 4 metal tables and 16 metal chairs that were sitting outside a pizzeria.
#12 In Oregon, thieves recently broke into a Salvation Army community center and stole 3 large air conditioning units. Now all the people that come to that facility for help and for community programs this summer will be absolutely sweltering.
#13 In the Cleveland area, two young boys that had set up a lemonade stand were robbed in broad daylight. The crooks got away with approximately 12 dollars.
#15 A 59 year old man from North Carolina named Richard James Verone was so desperate for money that he actually robbed a bank and got caught on purpose so that he could be put in prison and be given free health care.
One day Verone walked into an RBC Bank in North Carolina, handed a clerk a note demanding exactly one dollar and sat down and waited for the police to arrive and arrest him.
Verone has a growth on his chest and two ruptured disks but he does not have any health insurance. He is hoping that in prison he will get the medical treatment that he needs.
As society continues to unravel, prison is going to look like an appealing option for more and more people.
At least in prison you get fed, you have a roof over your head and they will take care of your medical needs.
For a whole lot of Americans, that would be a major step up.
Have you noticed that the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear?
America is becoming a cold, cruel place and lawlessness is everywhere.
For many more signs that our society is starting to crumble, please see these two articles….
For ages, Americans have looked down on the crime and the depravity that goes on in other areas of the world.
Well, now America has all of the crime and depravity it can handle and it is going to get a lot worse as millions of formerly middle class Americans descend into poverty.
A regular commenter on my website who identifies himself as “El Pollo de Oro” recently described the kind of chaos that he believes is coming to the streets of America….
I live in Philadelphia, a city that used to have a ton of blue-collar manufacturing jobs as well as a great deal of white-collar employment, but the blue-collar manufacturing jobs have disappeared–and on the white-collar side, a college degree isn’t necessarily the ticket to prosperity it once was. Philly has its share of nasty, dangerous ghetto areas as well as ritzy, upscale areas like Rittenhouse Square. But then, there are parts of Mexico City that look like Beverly Hills except that the signs are en español. A minority of Chilangos are filthy rich, which is what you expect in a Third World country: an uber-rich minority and a poor majority. And when The Banana Republic of America (formerly the USA) signed on for globalism and ignored Ross Perot’s warning, it opted to become a Third World country—which means that you can kiss the American middle class goodbye.
But there will be some growth industries in The Banana Republic of America: kidnapping, drug smuggling, murder for hire, carjacking, armed robbery. And if you want a taste of what life will be like in American cities in the future, just spend a few weeks in Guatemala City, Johannesburg or Caracas—all of which have the type of horrible crime rates that BRA cities can look forward to in the future. Desperate people do desperate things, and hardcore desperation will be in the norm in the BRA. It won’t be fun (unless, of course, being robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight is one’s idea of a good time).
Welcome to life in a rotting, decaying Third World hellhole. Welcome to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Welcome to life in The Banana Republic of America, formerly the USA.
America is changing. The safe, secure environment that we all used to take for granted is dying. The number of truly desperate people rises by the day, and many of those desperate people are willing to do just about anything for money.
The United States used to have a thriving middle class, but our economic system has been so manipulated over the decades that now almost all of the economic rewards go to the very top of the food chain.
25 years ago, the wealthiest 12 percent of all Americans controlled 33 percent of all the wealth. Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans control 40 percent of all the wealth.
In the United States today, we are actually witnessing the death of the middle class. Our jobs have been shipped overseas, the banks have enslaved us to debt, the government keeps finding more ways to tax us and the Federal Reserve keeps debasing our currency.
Everywhere you go, despair is in the air. According to a brand new Reuters/Ipsos poll, 63 percent of Americans believe that the nation is on the wrong track.
Fortunately, many Americans are responding to these signs of trouble by preparing.
One local Oklahoma newspaper recently did an article that profiled a few of the growing number of Americans that are preparing for hard times….
Rod and Lauretta Smith estimate they could survive a year without going to the grocery store.
A large garden on their 5-acre property in south Tulsa produces hundreds of quarts of canned and frozen beans, tomatoes and other vegetables. Chickens provide eggs.
The Smiths are among a small but growing number of people stocking up on food to become more self-reliant in a time marked by natural disasters and economic uncertainty.
The truth is that all of us should try to become less dependent on the system. The Democrats, the Republicans, the Federal Reserve and the big corporations are not there to help you. They are not going to come riding to the rescue if you lose your job and your home.
We all need to do what we can to become more independent and to prepare ourselves and our families for the incredibly difficult economic times that are inevitably coming. Those that have faith that their jobs will always be there or that the government will always take care of them will be deeply disappointed.
The system is dying and society is coming apart.
The only rational thing to do is to prepare for what is coming.
Economic despair is beginning to spread rapidly in America. As you read this, there are millions of American families that are just barely hanging on by their fingernails. For a growing number of Americans, it has become an all-out battle just to be able to afford to sleep under a roof and put a little bit of food on the table. Sadly, there are more people than ever that are losing that battle. Tonight, tens of thousands of formerly middle class Americans will be sleeping in their cars, even though that is illegal in many U.S. cities. Tens of thousands of others will be sleeping in tent cities or on the streets. Meanwhile, communities all over America are passing measures that are meant to push tent cities and homeless people out of their areas. It turns out that once you lose your job and your home in this country you become something of an outcast. Sadly, the number of “outcasts” is going to continue to grow as the U.S. economy continues to collapse.
Most Americans that end up living in their cars on in tent cities never thought that it would happen to them.
An article in Der Spiegel profiled one American couple that is absolutely shocked at what has happened to them….
Chanelle Sabedra is already on that road. She and her husband have been sleeping in their car for almost three weeks now. “We never saw this coming, never ever,” says Sabedra. She starts to cry. “I’m an adult, I can take care of myself one way or another, and same with my husband, but (my kids are) too little to go through these things.” She has three children; they are nine, five and three years old.
“We had a house further south, in San Bernardino,” says Sabedra. Her husband lost his job building prefab houses in July 2009. The utility company turned off the gas. “We were boiling water on the barbeque to bathe our kids,” she says. No longer able to pay the rent, the Sabedras were evicted from their house in August.
How would you feel if you had a 3 year old kid and a 5 year old kid and you were sleeping in a car?
Sadly, if child protective services finds out about that family those kids will probably be stolen away and never returned.
America is becoming a very cruel place.
Unfortunately, what has happened to that family is not an isolated incident. As rampant unemployment has spread across America, the number of people that have lost their homes has soared.
Today, it is estimated that approximately a third of the homeless population in Seattle live in their cars.
It is even happening to my readers. A reader named JD left the following comment on one of my articles a while back….
I was laid off from my construction job almost 2 yrs ago was on unenjoyment for over a yr they cut me off last september so i lost my apartment. Since then ive been couch surfing and hotel hopping. Now i occaisonally sleep in my car. I was lucky enough to have a friend with a lawn care business so i can at least put ever increasing gas in my car\house. I hate to say it but i think we will see hoovervilles in the major cities soon. When the welfare & food stamps & all the other govt. programs end the anarchy begins.
Desperation is rising all over America. Most people had hoped to see an economic recovery by now but it just hasn’t happened.
The phenomenon of Americans living in their cars has become so prominent that even Time Magazine has done a story about it….
For people who cannot afford rent, a car is the last rung of dignity and sanity above the despair of the streets. A home on wheels is a classic American affair, from the wagon train to the RV. Now, for some formerly upwardly mobile Americans, the economic storm has turned the backseat or the rear of the van into the bedroom. “We found six people sleeping in their cars on an overnight police ride-along in December,” says John Edmund, chief of staff to Long Beach councilman Dee Andrews. “One was a widow living in a four-door sedan. She and her husband had been Air Force veterans. She did not know about the agencies that could help her. I had tears in my eyes afterwards.”
Unfortunately, it turns out that sleeping in cars has been made illegal in many areas of the United States.
In many cities, police are putting boots on the cars and when the homeless owners can’t pay the fines the vehicles are being taken away from them.
Venice, California is one place where people have been arrested for living in vehicles. Venice had been a popular spot for people living in their RVs to go, but police started arresting people that were living in RVs and they began towing away their vehicles. The following is an excerpt from an article that appeared on the Daily Kos website….
They took Eric while he was changing his battery in his car. Claimed he lived in his car. A few days later they went to 3th Street and took his RV because he was in jail and no one moved it for 72 hours. Saturday they did a sweep of 7th and took Bear and his RV. They also took Elizabeth’s RV but do not know if they took Elizabeth but can not find her. The police went to 6th and took the white RV that always parks by Broadway on 6th. Everyday they take 1 to 4 RVs. Very soon there will be no one left.
Once you are down on your luck in America you will quickly find that authorities will try to take everything else you still have away from you.
The United States can be a very brutal place to be if you are poor.
All over America, communities are making tent cities illegal or they are simply just chasing them away.
It turns out that many Americans really don’t like large numbers of homeless people camping out in their neighborhoods.
But many of those now living in tent cities used to be just like you and me.
What is being done to tent cities in some areas of the country is absolutely disgusting.
For example, who could ever forget this video of police in St. Petersburg, Florida using box cutters to slash up the tents of the homeless….
What goes through your mind when you watch something like that?
If you don’t feel at least a little bit of compassion for those people then something is wrong.
You never know – you might be the next one forced to take refuge in a tent city.
In many U.S. cities, it is even illegal to sleep on the street. If you are homeless I am not sure what you are supposed to do. In some areas of the U.S. you can’t sleep in your car, you can’t sleep in a tent city and you can’t sleep on the street.
So what should we do with all of the Americans that are being forced out of their homes by this economy?
Should we just round them all up and put them into fenced camps?
Don’t laugh – we are getting closer to that kind of thing every day.
We live in very frightening times.
Poverty is absolutely exploding in America. The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006. There are 44 million Americans on food stamps. If it was not for measures like these, the streets of America would be filled with destitute people.
Things are tough out there and they are about to get tougher.
At the beginning of next year, the extended unemployment benefits that have been helping the unemployed during this economic downturn will expire. Up to now, many unemployed Americans have been able to enjoy up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. Now that is coming to an end.
According to the New York Times, this is going to drain 37 billion dollars out of the wallets of unemployed Americans that are just barely hanging on.
What in the world is that going to do to the economy?
This all comes at a time when it looks like unemployment is going to start rising once again.
Cisco has just announced that they are going to be laying off 10,000 workers. Other large firms are expected to announce more layoffs shortly. The number of good jobs continues to shrink.
There are other signs that the economy is slowing once again. Pre-orders for Christmas toys are way down. Vacancies at U.S. shopping malls are rising again. Nearly every major poll shows that Americans are extremely pessimistic about the economy right now.
So why in the world is all of this happening?
Where in the world did all of our jobs go?
Well, it turns out that millions of our jobs have been shipped overseas where the labor is far, far cheaper and it is really starting to catch up with us.
Occasionally a half-ruined or half-burned house still stands to remind you that this used to be a cityscape. Pathetic, besieged knots of surviving homes remind you of what was once here. Sometimes amazing efforts have been made to keep them smart. More often, they haven’t.
Many bear menacing notices warning visitors to stay away. On the door of one, easy to imagine as a neat home with an iron-pillared porch where the head of the family must once have sat on summer evenings, are the words ‘Enter at ya own risk’ accompanied by a crude drawing of an angry face.
I ventured into a nearby ruin, smashed, charred and half-filled with garbage. You have no idea who or what might be lurking in these houses.
But don’t laugh at Detroit. What is happening in Detroit is coming to your area soon enough.
America is in an advanced state of decay. The number of “outcasts” is going to multiply as more Americans lose their jobs and their homes. Millions more Americans will be sleeping in their cars, in tent cities or on the streets before this is all over.
The U.S. economy is never going to get back to “normal”. What we are living through now is the “new normal” and it is rip-roaring prosperity compared to what is coming.
Please show compassion to the people around you that are hurting right now.
You never know, as the economy continues to unravel it may be you that needs some compassion soon.
Without an abundance of good jobs, the middle class in the United States is going to shrivel up and die. Right now, rampant unemployment is absolutely killing communities all over America. Hopelessness and poverty are exploding and many are now wondering if we are actually witnessing the slow death of the middle class. There simply are not nearly enough “good jobs” to go around anymore, and even many in the mainstream media are referring to this as a “long-term structural problem” with the economy. The only thing that most working class Americans have to offer in the marketplace is their labor. If nobody will hire them they do not have any other ways to provide for their families. Well, there is a problem. Today wealth has become incredibly centralized. The big corporations and the big banks dominate everything. Thanks to incredible advances in technology and thanks to the globalization of our economic system, the people with all the money don’t have to hire as many ordinary Americans anymore. They can hire all the labor they want on the other side of the globe for a fraction of the cost. So the rich don’t really have that much use for the working class in America anymore. The only thing of value that the working class had to offer has now been tremendously devalued. The wealthy don’t have to pay a lot for physical labor anymore. Thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs have been shipped overseas and they aren’t coming back. The big corporations are thriving while tens of millions of ordinary Americans are deeply suffering. Almost all of the wealth being produced by our economy is going to a very centralized group of people at the very top of the food chain. The rich are getting richer and the working class is being systematically wiped out.
So the fact that we are facing rampant unemployment that never seems to go away should not be a surprise to anyone. Today, the “official” unemployment rate went up to 9.2 percent even though a whopping 272,000 Americans “dropped out of the labor force” in June. The government unemployment figure that includes “discouraged workers” went up from 15.8% to 16.2%. The mainstream media is proclaiming that this was “a horrific report” because most economists were expecting much better news.
Well, guess what?
Things are going to get a whole lot worse.
More job cuts are coming. One recently released report found that the number of job cuts being planned by U.S. employers increased by 11.6% in June.
It is also being projected that state and local governments across the U.S. will slash nearly half a million more jobs by the end of next year.
Needless to say, things don’t look good.
Most people that still have jobs are desperately trying to hold on to them.
Employers know that most workers are easily replaceable these days, so wages are not moving up even though the cost of living is.
We are right in the middle of the worst employment downturn since World War 2. Jay-Z recently summed up the situation this way….
“Numbers don’t lie. Unemployment is pretty high.”
Jay-Z certainly has a way with words, eh?
If something is not done about the rampant unemployment in this nation, the death of the middle class will accelerate.
Most Americans just assume that the United States will always have a large middle class, but there is no guarantee that is going to happen. In fact, there is a whole lot of evidence that the middle class in America is rapidly shrinking.
Take a few moments to read over the facts compiled below. Taken together, they provide compelling evidence that the working class is being systematically wiped out….
#2 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million people to the population since then.
#4 The United States has never had an employment downturn this deep and this prolonged since World War 2 ended.
#5 There are officially 6.3 million Americans that have been unemployed for more than 6 months. That number has risen by more than 3.5 million in just the past two years.
#6 It now takes the average unemployed worker in America about 40 weeks to find a new job. Just check out this chart….
#7 There are now about 7.25 million fewer jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#8 Back in 2000, the employment to population ratio was over 64 percent. Today, it is sitting at just 58.2%.
#9 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.
#10 During this economic downturn, employee compensation in the United States has been the lowest that it has been relative to gross domestic product in over 50 years.
#11 The number of “low income jobs” in the U.S. has risen steadily over the past 30 years and they now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States.
#12 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
#13 According to a report released in February from the National Employment Law Project, higher wage industries are accounting for 40 percent of the job losses in America but only 14 percent of the job growth. Lower wage industries are accounting for just 23 percent of the job losses but 49 percent of the job growth.
#14 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#15Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.
#16 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.
#17 Do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe? Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.
#18 In 2010, South Korea exported 12 times as many automobiles, trucks and parts to us as we exported to them.
#19 The United States now spends more than 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.
#21 The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.
#22 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobsper month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
#23 In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in “advanced technology products” of $16 billion with the rest of the world. In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.
#24 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry was actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.
#25 Since 2001, over 42,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed.
#26 There were more manufacturing jobs in the United States in 1950 than there are today.
#27 Since the year 2000, we have lost approximately 10% of our middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs. Meanwhile, our population has gotten significantly larger.
#28 When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971.
#29 One recent survey found that 9 out of 10 U.S. workers do not expect their wages to keep up with soaring food prices and soaring gas prices over the next 12 months.
#30Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
#31One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.
#33 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#34 As 2007 began, there were 26 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are more than 44 million Americans on food stamps, which is an all-time record.
#39 According to Moody’s Analytics, the wealthiest 5% of all households in the United States now account for approximately 37% of all consumer spending.
#40 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
The cold, hard reality of the matter is that the United States is experiencing a long-term economic decline.
Every single day, more American families fall out of the middle class and into poverty. There are millions of American families out there tonight that are just barely hanging on by their fingernails.
More Americans than ever are constantly borrowing more money just to stay afloat. Even as rampant unemployment plagues this nation and even as wages remain stagnant, middle class Americans are increasing their use of credit.
A CNBC article noted the increase in consumer borrowing that we have seen recently….
The Federal Reserve says consumer borrowing rose $5.1 billion following a revised gain of $5.7 billion in April. Borrowing in the category that covers credit cards increased, as did borrowing in the category for auto and student loans.
It is very hard to live “the American Dream” without going into huge amounts of debt these days.
But for an increasing number of Americans, “the American Dream” is just a distant memory.
Tonight, there are large numbers of people living in the tunnels under the city of Las Vegas. As the wealthy live the high life in the casinos and hotels above them, an increasing number of desperate “tunnel people” are attempting to carve out an existence in the 200 mile long labyrinth of tunnels that stretches beneath Vegas. It is a nightmarish environment, but it is all those people have left.
Don’t look down on them, because you never know who might be next.
If you lost your current job, how long would you be able to survive?
Unfortunately, as bad as things are now, the reality is that this is just the beginning.
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Do what you can to make sure that you and your family are not totally wiped out by the next wave of the economic collapse.
How in the world does the average American family survive in this economy? The median household income is a little bit less than $50,000 a year right now. So let’s call that about $4000 a month. But before any of that money gets spent, you have to take out at least $1000 in taxes. That leaves about $3000 a month to pay all the bills with. With that $3000 you have to pay the mortgage (or rent), make the car payments, make the student loan payments, pay for power and water, pay for health insurance, pay for home insurance, pay for car insurance, pay the phone bill, pay the Internet bill and pay the cable bill. On top of all that, every member of the family needs three meals a day and the cars need to be filled up with gasoline or they won’t go anywhere. Of course I haven’t even mentioned expenses that don’t happen every month such as car repairs or new shoes. No wonder so many families are feeling so financially stressed!
