The Economy

Do you remember how painful the Great Recession was?  2008 and the years immediately following were definitely a very dark chapter in our history, but a new study has actually found that the percentage of Americans that worry they won’t be able to pay their bills is actually higher today than it was back then.  Slowly but surely, our economic strength has been fading and our standard of living has been falling.  Unfortunately, now we have reached a point where a very large portion of the U.S. population is really struggling.  According to a CNN poll that was just released, almost 40 percent of all U.S. adults “say they worry most or all of the time that their family’s income won’t be enough to meet expenses”…

Many Americans regularly worry they won’t be able to make ends meet.

Nearly four in ten (39%) of US adults say they worry most or all of the time that their family’s income won’t be enough to meet expenses, according to a new CNN poll. That’s up from 28% who expressed those concerns in December 2021, and it’s similar to the numbers seen during the Great Recession (37%).

To cope, significant shares of Americans said they are adding side jobs, cutting down on driving and putting more expenses on credit cards.

If you would have asked me before I saw the results, I would have been quite confident that the number during the Great Recession would have been higher than the number in 2024.

Just like everyone else, I remember the Great Recession as such a painful time.

Sadly, the economic pain that we are experiencing now is just beginning.

Ordinary Americans from coast to coast are being absolutely crushed by rising prices, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

In an article that CNN posted about this new survey, one woman that works for the CDC admitted that she was recently forced to move because costs have risen so aggressively…

“The grocery store is just outrageous right now. But it’s not just that. Everything has gone up. Clothing. My insurance,” said Angela Russell, an Ohio resident who works as a program analyst at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Russell, who has two adult children and three grandkids, said she recently moved out of her rental home in Cincinnati in favor of one in a rural area where the rent is cheaper.

Other recent surveys have come up with results that are even more alarming.

For example, one discovered that a whopping 71 percent of Americans are stressed out about their “ability to afford everyday expenses”…

71% of Americans say they’re stressed by their ability to afford everyday expenses.

Americans most regularly spend money on groceries, phone bills, utilities, gasoline and rent/mortgage payments.

Grocery bills frustrate Americans more than any other regular expense. Utilities, rent/mortgage payments, gasoline and insurance payments round out the top five most annoying expenses.

That is most of the country.

Unsurprisingly, younger generations are being hit particularly hard by the pain of inflation…

Financial stress levels are highest among millennials (77%), followed by Generation Z (75%) and Generation X (74%). Baby boomers reported experiencing the least financial stress, although at 59% it was still more than half of those surveyed.

Those that follow my work regularly know that I tend to rant about rising prices at the grocery store.

Sometimes it is hard for me to believe that prices have gotten so high, and it appears that a lot of people out there agree with me.

Another recent survey found that 80 percent of Americans have observed a “notable increase” in grocery store prices…

According to a study by Qualtrics on behalf of Intuit Credit Karma, 80% of Americans say they have felt a “notable increase” in grocery costs in recent years. More than a quarter of respondents said the increased cost has led them to occasionally skip meals, while about one-third said they spend more than 60% of their monthly income on mandatory expenses such as food, utilities and rent.

Food has certainly become ridiculously expensive, but we actually spend far more money on housing.

Today, the typical household spends about 12 percent of total income on food and about 33 percent of total income on housing…

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the top three annual expenses for the average American household in 2022 (the most recent data available) were housing (33.3%), transportation (16.8%) and food (12.8%).

For most Americans, spending money in these areas is unavoidable.

Housing costs have been rising much faster than the overall rate of inflation, and we just learned that home prices reached yet another new all-time record high last month…

Home prices hit a new high in June for the second straight month, the latest sign that the housing market is unaffordable to millions of Americans.

The spring home-buying season, usually the busiest time of year for the housing market, was a dud this year. Home sales declined in June for the fourth straight time on a monthly basis. The combination of high prices and elevated mortgage rates has made homeownership less attractive to renters and deterred current homeowners from moving.

Meanwhile, homelessness in the United States is at the highest level ever recorded and it has been growing at the fastest pace ever recorded.

We just can’t keep going on like this.

Something has to give.

It appears to be inevitable that all of this economic pain will have a dramatic impact on the upcoming election.  At this point, approximately three out of every five Americans believe that we are already in a recession right now…

You don’t need to be a financial genius to know that times are tough for plenty of Americans. With that in mind, a majority of people actually think the economy is doing even worse than the “experts” say it is. Three in five people believe that the U.S. is currently in a recession, even though we’re not officially in one according to the financial definition.

The survey of 2,000 Americans explored what’s driving this lack of consumer confidence in the economy. Inflation and the rising cost of living (68%) top the list of reasons why respondents believe the U.S. is in a recession, followed by friends and family members complaining about money (50%).

It is not an accident that this has happened.

For more than a decade, people like me have been relentlessly warning that the decisions that our leaders were making would have disastrous consequences, and that is exactly what has happened.

And if we stay on the path that we are on, it won’t be too long before we witness a meltdown of absolutely epic proportions.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s  books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

When you look at Joe Biden, you are also getting a visual picture of what is happening to our economy as a whole.  Both have been getting artificially propped up for a long time, both are now sick once again, and both are starting to decline very rapidly at this point.  There is lots of speculation that Joe Biden is not going to be able to make it much longer, and of course the exact same thing could be said about the U.S. economy.  Sadly, the truth is that the clock won’t stop ticking and time is not on the side of either one of them.

On Wednesday, we learned that Joe Biden has once again tested positive for COVID…

President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 following an event Wednesday in Las Vegas, the White House confirmed.

This is the third time the president has tested positive for the virus. And Biden is not alone: the positivity rates for COVID-19 have been increasing recently, as have visits to the emergency department and deaths.

Biden, 81, is vaccinated and boosted and is “experiencing mild symptoms,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

The White House is trying to make it sound like this isn’t a big deal, but Biden certainly didn’t look like he was just “experiencing mild symptoms” when he arrived in Delaware on Wednesday night…

The 81-year-old – whose political future is in jeopardy due to his age – walked very slowly off Air Force One, pausing multiple times.

He then put on a mask on inside the black SUV that carted him off to his beach house in Rehoboth.

Biden also appeared to need some assistance as he slowly nudged himself into the car before the motorcade pulled away.

Of course this is happening at a time when speculation that Biden could drop out of the race has reached a fever pitch.

Axios is reporting that some “top Democrats” believe that Biden could make an announcement “as soon as this weekend”…

Several top Democrats privately tell us the rising pressure of party congressional leaders and close friends will persuade President Biden to decide to drop out of the presidential race, as soon as this weekend.

Personally, I don’t know if Biden is ready to throw in the towel quite yet.

But we shall see what happens.

Meanwhile, more bad economic news continues to pour in.

For example, we are being told that home eviction filings are way up all over the nation…

Home evictions are on the rise in several major cities nationwide as Americans continue to grapple with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

Eviction filings over the past year are up more than 15% compared with the period before the COVID-19 pandemic began in 10 cities across the country, according to the Eviction Lab, a research unit at Princeton University. The Eviction Lab tracks 10 states and 34 cities.

However, the problem is noticeably worse in five cities, where the eviction rate is at least 30% higher than it was before the pandemic started.

Whether someone is seeking to rent or buy, housing costs have soared into unprecedented territory.

And this is one of the biggest reasons why so many Americans are so deeply frustrated with the economy right now.

According to Fox Business, the “median monthly housing payment for homebuyers in swing states” has risen 92 percent since the last presidential election…

The cost of buying a house has surged in recent years, as high mortgage rates and rising home prices put ownership out of reach for many Americans.

The problem is even worse for the millions living in key battleground states that could determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

New findings from Redfin show the combination of steep mortgage rates and elevated home prices has pushed the median monthly housing payment for homebuyers in swing states to an all-time high of $2,161 – a 92% increase from the 2020 election.

This is going to have an enormous impact on how people vote, and that is not good news for the Democrats at all.

At the same time, banking industry problems continue to mount and local branches continue to be shut down at a staggering pace…

US banks closed 28 branches across the country in just one week in July.

Wells Fargo, Bank of America and US Bank each closed eight locations in the last week.

The remaining locations were closed by Greenville Fed, Chase and Schaumberg Bank & Trust, who each closed one branch.

Watch the banking industry, because I believe that this will eventually become a huge story during the months ahead.

Retailers are permanently shutting down lots of locations too.  In fact Stop & Shop just announced that they will be closing 32 grocery stores…

Stop & Shop is closing 32 underperforming grocery stores across the US northeast as part of the company’s efforts to improve its financial performance.

Shoppers are also being squeezed by higher prices at the grocery store, with food prices experiencing modest upticks last month, according to the newest inflation report.

“Stop & Shop has evaluated its overall store portfolio and made the difficult decision to close underperforming stores to create a healthy base for the future growth of our brand,” said the chain’s president Gordon Reid in a release.

Needless to say, that isn’t even worth comparing to what Walgreens is getting ready to do.

The plan is to shutter more than 2,000 Walgreens locations before it is all over, and that is really bad news for those that have come to depend upon that chain…

Shoppers, it may be time to find a new pharmacy. Walgreens is closing up to a quarter of its 8,600 stores within the United States.

Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth recently explained to the Wall Street Journal on June 27 that the closures would focus on locations that aren’t profitable, too close to each other or stores struggling with theft.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning, because vast hordes are businesses are likely to go belly up during the coming years.

According to one recent survey, almost half of our small businesses are convinced that they will not survive “the current economic climate, ongoing inflation or another four years of Biden administration policies”…

Nearly half of 80,000 small businesses surveyed say they won’t survive the current economic climate, ongoing inflation or another four years of Biden administration policies, according to the survey conducted by RedBalloon and Public Square.

Their May Freedom Economy Index found that small businesses “remain in survival mode,” with 40% delaying paying bills to manage cash flow and 70 percent putting staffing plans on hold, neither hiring nor reducing staff, “the highest reading … over the past year,” the report states.

We are in far more trouble than most people realize.

I have been documenting the ups and downs of our inevitable economic decline for more than a decade, and now we have reached a stage where that decline is threatening to become an avalanche.

So I would encourage you to brace yourself for very hard times, because it has become clear that this is a story that is not going to end well.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s  books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

We continue to get numbers that indicate that the U.S. economy is steamrolling in the wrong direction as we approach the most chaotic election season in our history.  Needless to say, the performance of the economy is going to play a major role in the outcome of the election, because millions upon millions of Americans are really suffering right now.  Homelessness has been growing at the fastest pace ever recorded, hunger and poverty are exploding, and we are in the midst of a cost of living crisis that doesn’t seem to have any end in sight.  Unfortunately, there are signs that things will soon get even worse.  For example, we experienced a “historic surge” of corporate bankruptcies during the first half of this year that was worse than anything we have witnessed since the first half of 2010…

There is a “historic surge” of corporate bankruptcies underway in the U.S., as debt-saddled companies struggle to adjust to the new era of high interest rates.

New figures published by S&P Global Intelligence show that 75 companies filed for bankruptcy in June, the highest number recorded in a single month since early 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. That pushed this year’s total number of bankruptcies so far to 346, which is notably higher than comparable levels seen in the past 13 years.

Before this, the highest half-year figure recorded was in 2010, with 437 companies filing for bankruptcy from January through June.

During the first half of 2010, we were just coming out of the Great Recession.

Do you remember how painful things were in those days?

Sadly, I believe that what is ahead of us will be even more painful.

The unprecedented measures that our leaders took to prop up the economy worked for a while, but now cracks are starting to show all over the place.

And a lot more big businesses will go belly up during the months ahead.

Earlier today, I was quite saddened to learn that Big Lots is on the verge of bankruptcy…

Discount retail chain Big Lots said it will close up to 40 stores this year and may declare bankruptcy.

The Columbus, Ohio-based company wrote in a quarterly Securities and Exchange Commission filing it expected further operating losses and has “substantial doubt” it can continue as a functioning business.

Big Lots last month reported a net loss of $205 million in the quarter ending May 4, 2024.

When I lived in Virginia many years ago, I would shop at Big Lots quite a bit.

And it always seemed to be doing fairly well.

But now times have changed.

Today, most Americans have very little discretionary income.  In fact, surveys have shown that the vast majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck at this point…

A 2023 survey conducted by Payroll.org highlighted that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a 6% increase from the previous year. In other words, more than three-quarters of Americans struggle to save or invest after paying for their monthly expenses.

Similarly, a 2023 Forbes Advisor survey revealed that nearly 70% of respondents either identified as living paycheck to paycheck (40%) or—even more concerning—reported that their income doesn’t even cover their standard expenses (29%).

There is no way to spin those numbers in a positive manner.

Any way that you look at them, they are absolutely horrible.

The middle class is being ripped to shreds, and those that are running the system seem to be all out of answers.

Young adults in particular are having a very difficult time in this environment.

According to a survey that was recently conducted by Bank of America, almost half of all adult members of Generation Z “are relying on financial help from their parents and family members”…

A new survey by Bank of America finds that nearly half of adult members of Gen Z are relying on financial help from their parents and family members to get by.

The survey for Bank of America’s Better Money Habits team found that 46% of Gen Z are receiving financial assistance from their parents or other family members, a figure that declines to 30% for Gen Z non-students.

Have you noticed that so many young adults seem to be very bitter and very angry these days?

This is one of the big reasons why they are in such a foul mood.

Many of them were promised that life would be good if the studied hard, went to college, and did all the right things.

But now many of them are discovering that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was just an illusion.

Of course there is a small sliver of society that is still doing exceptionally well.

Flooding the system with trillions upon trillions of dollars has been very good for the financial markets, and those with lots of money in the financial markets have been living the high life.

In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, millionaires are complaining that the town is being ruined by all of the billionaires that are now moving in…

Millionaires once accused of ruining a gorgeous town in Wyoming now complain they are being driven out of the area by billionaires.

Jackson Hole has long been a popular vacation spot for celebrities including Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes and Matthew McConaughey.

An influx of wealthy people sent house prices sky-rocketing and forced ordinary workers to live on the other side of the mountain on the Idaho-Wyoming border.

There are more billionaires in America today than ever before.

That is the good news.

The bad news is that there are more homeless people in America today than ever before, the ranks of the poor are growing very rapidly, and more Americans are falling out of the middle class with each passing day.

The wealthy may think that all of the wealth that they have piled up will insulate them from the unprecedented chaos that is approaching, but the truth is that a day of reckoning is coming for them too.

In the end, the entire system is going to completely and utterly fail, and those that believed that the party would last forever will be bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s  books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

When you are creeping out on a very high tree limb, everything may seem fine until suddenly the limb snaps and disaster strikes.  I think that is a perfect metaphor for what we are facing as a country.  Our politicians in Washington have artificially propped up our economy for years by piling up 34 trillion dollars in debt, and the “experts” at the Federal Reserve have artificially propped up the financial markets for years by pumping trillions upon trillions of dollars that they created out of thin air into the system.  But now we are so far out on a limb that there is no way back, and there is no safety net below.  Ultimately, our fate will be the same as this guy…

Heart-stopping video footage shows the moment a Florida man plummets 60 feet into a creek after a branch he was standing on broke beneath him.

Christopher James Sikes Smalley was enjoying a day at Crystal Springs, a popular swimming spot in Vernon, when a branch he was climbing on snapped.

A clip shows Smalley hanging on to a branch above him with one hand and balancing on top of another.

Suddenly, the branch below Smalley gave way, causing him to fall and hitting other branches before landing in the water.

Fortunately, Smalley was not killed.

But this was a fall that he will never forget for the rest of his life.

I had to write about this, because it reminded me of what so many people out there are going through right now.

Millions of Americans are currently experiencing their own individual “economic collapses”, and that includes a lifelong Democratic in Pennsylvania named Stacey Ellis that was recently interviewed by the BBC…

She has switched stores, cut out brand-name items like Dove soap and Stroehmann bread, and all but said goodbye to her favourite Chick-fil-A sandwich.

Still, Ms Ellis has sometimes turned to risky payday loans (short-term borrowing with high interest rates) as she grapples with grocery prices that have surged 25% since Mr Biden entered office in January 2021.

“Prior to inflation,” she says, “I didn’t have any debt, I didn’t have any credit cards, never applied for like a payday loan or any of those things. But since inflation, I needed to do all those things….I’ve had to downgrade my life completely.”

Have you had to “downgrade” your life too?

If so, you are far from alone.

For example, a 26-year-old security guard in Brooklyn named Dylan Garcia now only eats two times a day because that is all that he can afford…

Dylan Garcia, a 26-year-old security guard from Brooklyn, says he’s never struggled to buy groceries as much as he has now.

Instead of the fresh food and brand-name items he used to enjoy, he now stocks up on ramen noodles and frozen vegetables – and only eats twice a day because he can’t afford more.

At checkout, he routinely uses “buy now, pay later” schemes, which allow him to pay the bill in installments, but have led to mounting debt.

If you can still eat three meals a day, you should be very thankful for what you still have.

Of course it isn’t just food prices that have been soaring.

Housing has become ridiculously unaffordable, and this week we learned that home prices are now higher than ever…

Findings from Redfin show the median U.S. home sale price soared to $397,954 in June – a nearly 5% increase from a year earlier. That marks the highest level on record and the biggest annual increase since March.

The monthly mortgage payment at that price, when accounting for the 6.86% median interest rate for a 30-year mortgage, is now $2,749. That is roughly $88 shy of April’s record, thanks to a slight drop in mortgage rates.

In a desperate attempt to make ends meet, many Americans have been going very deep into debt.

That worked for a while, but now delinquency rates are spiking.

In fact, the percentage of credit card balances that are considered to be in serious delinquency has risen to the highest level in more than a decade…

The flow of credit card debt moving into delinquency hit 8.9% in the first quarter at an annualized rate, above pre-pandemic levels. In fact, the percentage of credit card balances in serious delinquency – payments are at least 90 days late – climbed to its highest level since 2012.

This is an especially dangerous time to be piling up credit card debt, because credit card interest rates have moved into uncharted territory…

Finally, a vivid reminder that once credit card rates go up they almost never go down, in Q2 the average interest rate on credit card accounts rose again, up to 22.76% from 22.63% in Q1 and 1 basis point below the all time high.

While so far consumers have pretended they can afford to pay this interest upon interest, there will come a day when the brick wall will finally be reached and the US consumer’s Wile E Coyote moment will finally come meet its gravitational implosion.

Most people don’t realize this, but there is no federally mandated limit on credit card interest rates.

So these days many credit card companies are just going hog wild.

Some cards now come with a rate of more than 30 percent on unpaid balances, and that is deeply immoral.

Don’t fall into their trap, because the goal of these predators is to bleed you dry.

Many businesses all over America are also reaching a breaking point here in 2024.  For instance, one of the largest flooring suppliers in the entire country is on the verge of bankruptcy…

One of America’s biggest flooring suppliers is considering bankruptcy – the latest retailer to face financial problems.

LL Flooring, with 442 stores across 47 states, has seen its sales falling over the past year as Americans cut back on renovating their homes.

And I was deeply saddened to learn that the company that makes Tonka Trucks and Lincoln Logs has now officially filed for bankruptcy…

A toy company behind favorite brands including Tonka, K’nex, and Care Bears has filed for bankruptcy.

Basic Fun also owns Playhut, Fisher Price Classics, Lite Brite and Lincoln Logs, and makes toys for Walmart, Target and amusement parks.

Tonka – famous for its rugged toy trucks – was founded in 1946 and celebrated its 75th birthday two years ago with Shaquille O’Neal.

Meanwhile, Care Bears were one of the biggest toys of the 1980s after being launched at the start of that decade.

For years, the U.S. economy has been creeping farther and farther into the danger zone.

The limb that we are standing on is really starting to make some very alarming noises, but our leaders don’t seem to care.

Sadly, it is only a matter of time before disaster strikes.

If we had made much different choices, we could have ended up with much different results.

Ultimately, we shall reap what we have sown, and that is not going to be pleasant at all.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s  books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

According to a stunning new survey that was just released, an annual income of at least $186,000 a year is required in order to feel financially secure in the United States today.  Unfortunately, only 6 percent of U.S. adults make that kind of money.  So we have a major problem on our hands.  The cost of living has become extremely painful, and millions of Americans are stressed out of their minds because their finances are such a mess.  Over the past several years we have witnessed an economic shift of epic proportions.  The ultra-wealthy have gotten a lot wealthier, the ranks of the poor have exploded, and the middle class has been absolutely eviscerated.  In this current economic environment, only a very small segment of the population is living comfortably.  The following comes from CBS News…

Americans have a specific annual income in mind for what it would take to feel financially secure, according to a new survey from Bankrate. The magic number? $186,000 per year.

Currently, only 6% of U.S. adults make that amount or more, Bankrate said. The median family income falls between $51,500 and $86,000, according to the latest federal data. Achieving financial security means being able to pay your bills while having enough left over to make some discretionary purchases and put money away for the future, the personal finance site said.

When I was growing up, I thought that anyone that earned more than $100,000 a year was wealthy.

But now it takes an income about five times that size in order to be considered “wealthy”…

Americans have an even higher yardstick for feeling rich. The survey found they believe they would need to earn $520,000 a year to qualify as wealthy — up from their $483,000 response during the same survey last year.

Much of the population is trying as hard as they can, but they will never make the kind of money that they would like to make.

Meanwhile, the cost of living just keeps going higher and higher and higher.

As a result, the percentage of Americans that admit that they are experiencing financial stress just continues to go up…

Many inflation-weary consumers continue to experience financial stress, with a new Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia survey finding that 35% of Americans are worried about making ends meet, up from 29% a year earlier.

That gap between what the typical American earns and what they aspire to earn means “Americans have their eyes set on this high income, and they think they need to make more money even if they know it’s unrealistic they’ll never make that amount,” Sarah Foster, an analyst at Bankrate, told CBS MoneyWatch.

At this point, even many that are considered to be in “upper-income groups” feel forced to take on extra jobs just to make ends meet…

Americans in upper-income groups are concerned about their ability to pay bills, with more than 15 percent of this demographic taking up additional jobs over the past year, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

As of April 2024, 32.5 percent of respondents earning over $150,000 annually were worried about making ends meet over the next six months, up from 21.7 percent in April of last year, the June survey showed.

This percentage is higher than for those in the income groups of $100,000 to $149,999, $70,000 to $99,999, and $40,000 to $69,999. Only individuals who earned less than $40,000, the lowest income group, were more worried than the $150,000-plus group.

I have never seen numbers like this before.

People are feeling so much anxiety about their finances, and that helps to explain why economic issues are playing such a prominent role in this election cycle.

Some Americans are trying to make ends meet by cutting back anywhere that they can.

For example, the following comes from an NPR article about how Americans are cutting back on charitable giving…

Robert Lang, a longtime cabinetmaker in Cincinnati, used to feel good about giving money to less-fortunate people. These days, however, he’s being forced to be less generous.

“I’m no great humanitarian,” says Lang. “But I feel really good if I can give a homeless guy 20 bucks. And we can’t do that anymore.”

The reason? Rising prices, which have forced Lang to dial back his giving as the 69-year-old tries to make ends meet with Social Security benefits and a part-time job with a furniture-making journal.

When times get tough, people become less generous.

I wish that wasn’t true, but that is just the way that it is.

So what will happen when economic conditions become extremely harsh?

BCA Research chief global strategist Peter Berezin is warning that another recession is coming and that stock prices could soon fall by 30 percent…

There may be trouble looming on the horizon for the U.S. stock market, according to BCA Research.

In a note to clients last week, BCA Research chief global strategist Peter Berezin warned that, contrary to popular belief, the economy will fall into a recession either this year or in early 2025.

Should that happen, the S&P 500 could tumble to 3,750, which marks a 30% drop from current levels.

Will he be proven correct?

I don’t know.

But I do know that it feels like a recession has already arrived to many Americans.

Every day, we get even more bad economic news.  For instance, Fox Business just published an article about how major drug store chains are in the process of closing down locations from coast to coast…

Just this week, Walgreens announced that it would close a “significant” number of under performing stores across the U.S. due to ongoing challenges with profitability and declining margins.

Earlier this month, Rite Aid announced that 27 locations in Michigan and Ohio have been added to the growing number of stores it plans to close while it restructures under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In large cities all over the nation, thousands upon thousands of commercial properties are now sitting empty.

Of course this is just the start.

As the globe is rocked by one chaotic crisis after another, things will get a whole lot worse.

A “perfect storm” is now upon us, and most people have absolutely no idea how harsh conditions around us will soon become.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s  books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

If you are really struggling with the high cost of living, I want you to know that you aren’t alone.  In recent months, I have been hearing from so many people that feel like they are drowning financially.  Have you experienced a palpable sense of panic when you compare your rising bills to the level of income that you are currently bringing in?  So many people out there are stressed out of their minds because it has become such a struggle to pay the bills each month.  As I discussed a few days ago, a typical U.S. household must now spend $1,069 more a month just to buy the exact same goods and services that it did three years ago.  Over the course of an entire year, that is almost an extra $13,000 dollars.  Month after month, prices just keep going higher, but those that are running things continue to insist that everything is just fine.

No, everything is not just fine.

Last week, a TikTok video about rising grocery prices at Walmart quickly garnered more than a million views.  The person that made the video found a grocery order that he had placed two years ago, and he decided to hit the “Reorder All” button to see what that same order would cost today…

A recent TikTok video has gone viral, showing a user’s surprising experience with Walmart’s grocery prices. The user explained in his video that he tried to use the “Reorder All” button for an order he placed two years ago, which originally cost $126.67. To his shock, the same order would now cost $414.39.

I was quite stunned by this video.

Many of the things that I regularly purchase at the grocery store have doubled or more than doubled in price, but in this case the total cost of the grocery order had more than tripled…

The TikTok (@sewerlidd) explained that the original $126.16 purchase was for a month’s worth of groceries, which included 53 items.

“A whole month of groceries just for me,” he said in the video.

The total was updated to $414.39, almost quadrupling.

“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” he said.

Needless to say, this video has generated a ton of discussion online.

When Walmart was asked about this, they responded by saying that the primary reason there was such a difference is because the person that made the video was attempting to order “discontinued items”…

Walmart representatives have responded, stating that the claims in the video are not accurate. According to them, the discrepancies in prices are due to discontinued items rather than actual inflation.

But this explanation certainly did not satisfy everyone.

Another person hit the “Reorder All” button on an old order, and that order went from $180 back then to $430 today…

Viewers expressed both shock and frustration in the comments.

“Now I feel a little less gaslit about grocery prices because it has gone crazy, and it’s not just me!” wrote one person.

“Walmart, can you explain yourself, please,” added another.

A fellow shopper said they used to spend $180 for two weeks’ worth of groceries and are now spending over $430 for the same amount.

If you think that the price of groceries is not a problem, I have a challenge for you.

Fill up a grocery cart all the way to the very top with items that you typically eat, and try to keep the final bill under 300 dollars.

If you are smart, you can do it, but it won’t be easy.

In the old days, you could buy a used vehicle for 300 dollars.

Now, many people burn through more than 300 dollars in just one trip to the grocery store.

This is just one of the reasons why inflation has become such a huge political issue.

According to Gallup, inflation was not really considered to be an important issue at all prior to 2022…

For the third year in a row, the percentage of Americans naming inflation or the high cost of living as the most important financial problem facing their family has reached a new high. The 41% naming the issue this year is up slightly from 35% a year ago and 32% in 2022. Before 2022, the highest percentage mentioning inflation was 18% in 2008. Inflation has been named by less than 10% in most other readings since the question was first asked in 2005.

The last three years have been an inflationary nightmare, and no matter how much our leaders try to deny it, a lot more inflation is on the way.

Things are particularly bad in our major cities.  In fact, it is being reported that Manhattan is the most expensive place to live in the United States by a wide margin…

The New York borough of Manhattan is the most expensive place to live in the U.S. — and the cost of living in the No. 2 place isn’t even close.

The cost of living in Manhattan is more than twice the national average. The second- and third-most expensive places are Honolulu and San Jose, California, but in comparison, they are much more affordable. Manhattan is 24% more expensive than Honolulu and 30% more expensive than San Jose.

It isn’t a big mystery why this is the case.

When our leaders pumped trillions upon trillions of dollars into the system, the financial markets benefitted greatly.

So Manhattan is swimming in cash, and prices there have gone into the stratosphere.

Many of us relentlessly warned about what would happen when our leaders flooded the system with cash, and now we are facing economic distortions that are extremely painful.

For most Americans, prices have been rising much faster than their paychecks.

As a result, our national standard of living has been steadily declining.

And now we have entered a time when it appears that economic conditions are really slowing down.

For example, it is being reported that Ford is preparing for yet another round of layoffs…

Ford Motor is preparing for a new round of layoffs for its salaried workers in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The company in March last year announced plans to reduce structural costs of up to $3 billion at its gas-powered vehicle unit. In August, Ford said it would cut a total of 3,000 salaried and contract jobs, mostly in North America and India.

Over the past several years, our politicians in Washington have borrowed and spent trillions upon trillions of dollars, and the “experts” at the Federal Reserve have pumped trillions upon trillions of dollars into the financial system.

All that did was buy us a little more time.

All that did was delay the inevitable.

Now we are facing a crisis of absolutely epic proportions, and the economic suffering that we are currently experiencing is nothing compared to the economic suffering that is ahead of us.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s  books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

It takes a lot of gumption to go on television and repeatedly lie to more than 300 million Americans.  I honestly don’t know how Joe Biden does it.  I suppose that after you have been lying for your entire career, lying comes as naturally as breathing does.  Sadly, there are still millions of Americans that are falling for his lies after all this time.  Biden would like for us all to believe that the economy is “booming”, that the southern border is under control, that our communities are safe, and that Ukraine is going to win their war against Russia.  Our entire society is literally crumbling all around us, and Biden and his minions have brought us to the brink of global war.  I am entirely convinced that he has been the worst president in U.S. history, and that is really saying something.

Ultimately, Joe Biden is just another slimy politician that is trying to save his job.

I get that.

But come on man, how can anyone actually believe the nonsense that he is shoveling?

There are a few numbers that Biden can cherry pick to try to make himself look good, but here are 21 facts that Joe Biden doesn’t want you to know…

1. It takes the typical U.S. household $1,069 more a month just to purchase the same goods and services that it did three years ago.

2. Two-thirds of the respondents to one recent survey indicated that they had to take action to deal with rising financial stress within the past year.  Those actions included “cutting back on spending, skipping monthly bills, or taking an additional job”.

3. Home insurance rates have risen by 38 percent since 2019.

4. Home rental prices are up 30 percent since Joe Biden entered the White House.

5. A whopping 61 percent of U.S. renters cannot afford the rent on a median-priced apartment in the United States right now.

6. Gasoline prices are up 46 percent since Joe Biden entered the White House.

7. The average rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage is up 148 percent since Joe Biden entered the White House.

8. According to Zillow, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical home in this country has almost doubled during the past four years.

9. One recent poll discovered that 44 percent of retired Americans are considering going back to work because the cost of living has become so oppressive.

10. New home sales fell 11.3 percent last month.

11. Pending home sales are dropping at the fastest rate ever recorded.

12. According to the House Budget Committee, there have been more than 8 million migrant encounters nationwide while Joe Biden has been in the White House.  We truly are in the midst of an immigration crisis that is far greater than anything that we have ever witnessed before.

13. Thanks to our unprecedented immigration crisis, the homeless population in the city of Chicago actually tripled in just one year.

14. Murder rates are up by double digit percentages in many major U.S. cities this year.

15. Continuing jobless claims just shot up to the highest level in almost three years.

16. The number of job openings in the United States has dropped to the lowest level in more than 3 years.

17. Rite Aid just announced that it will be closing 27 more stores.  That is on top of more than 500 stores that it has already decided to shut down.

18. Walgreens plans to close approximately one-fourth of its 8,600 U.S. stores.  If the economy really was “booming”, why would they be doing this?

19. Today, 20 percent of the entire population of the state of California is living in poverty.

20. According to one recent survey, 46 percent of Americans don’t even have 500 dollars saved up.

21. So far, the U.S. has spent a total of approximately 175 billion dollars on the war in Ukraine, and the Russians are still winning.

Over the past three and a half years, there has just been one epic failure after another.

The nightmarish withdrawal from Afghanistan set the stage for the entire Biden presidency.  Everything that Biden and his minions have touched has gone sour.  In fact, usually the best thing that Biden and his minions can do to solve a problem is to do nothing at all.

Have you ever known someone that has a knack for royally messing things up no matter how hard they try?

Unfortunately, Biden and his minions aren’t just incompetent.

They have blended extreme incompetence with sheer evil, and now they are asking voters to give them a chance to run America for another four years.

But if we stay on the path that we are on, will our nation even survive?

If we want to turn things around, we need to do the exact opposite of what we have been doing.

And we better move fast, because the clock is ticking…

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s  books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Unless you are living under a bridge or you are eagerly drinking the kool-aid that the mainstream media is dishing out, you probably understand that the economy has been struggling.  Survey after survey has found that the American people are deeply dissatisfied with how the economy has been performing, and as a result it has become the number one issue this election season.  But even though a large portion of the population is not happy about how things have been going, the truth is that the situation is far more dire than most people realize.  Just this week we have received quite a bit of very troubling news, and the outlook for the months ahead is very bleak.  The following are 11 signs that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than most people think…

#1 Just like in 2008, delinquencies are on the rise.  In fact, credit card delinquencies have now reached the highest level that we have seen in more than 10 years…

Meanwhile, more consumers aren’t making loan payments on time. Credit card delinquencies have hit their highest level in over a decade, and auto delinquencies are also spiking. This could prove to be yet another tripwire for the stock market, as consumer spending accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity.

#2 The commercial real estate crisis just continues to escalate.  An article that originally appeared in the New York Times claims that major Wall Street banks have “begun offloading their portfolios of commercial real estate loans hoping to cut their losses”…

Some Wall Street banks, worried that landlords of vacant and struggling office buildings won’t be able to pay off their mortgages, have begun offloading their portfolios of commercial real estate loans hoping to cut their losses.

It’s an early but telling sign of the broader distress brewing in the commercial real estate market, which is hurting from the twin punches of high interest rates, which make it harder to refinance loans, and low occupancy rates for office buildings — an outcome of the pandemic.

#3 When banks get into trouble, they start shutting down branches.  So far this year, U.S. banks have closed more than 400 branches all over the country…

US banks closed 51 branches across the country in the first three weeks of June.

The figures suggest banks are committed to increasingly offering their services online and axing costly bricks-and-mortar locations.

More than 400 bank branches have closed so far in 2024.

#4 Big companies are laying off workers from coast to coast.  For example, approximately 500 Texas truckers just lost their jobs when a large logistics company abruptly shut their doors for good…

A truck and logistics company has abruptly shut – affecting 2,000 workers – just three years after being bought by private equity.

Out of the blue, staff at US Logistics Solutions were given news on Thursday that they were out of a job and would also not get their paychecks on Friday.

Around 500 were truck drivers, and the rest a mixture of warehouse, dock and office workers at the Humble, Texas- based company.

#5 The Dallas Fed Services Index has now been in negative territory for 25 months in a row…

This is the 25th straight month of contraction (sub-zero) for the Dallas Fed Services index and judging by the respondents’ comments, there is a clear place to point the finger of blame

#6 The “restaurant apocalypse” just continues to intensify.  This week, we learned that Hooters has suddenly decided to permanently shut down close to 40 “underperforming” locations…

The Atlanta-based sports bar chain, Hooters, abruptly shuttered dozens of “underperforming” restaurants across the U.S., as it joins a growing list of eateries facing the harsh realities of inflation and changing consumer habits, according to reports.

Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN) reported that word began to spread on Sunday evening that Hooters locations in places like Bryan, Texas; Lakeland, Florida; and Louisville, Kentucky were closing abruptly, with nearly 40 restaurants in the U.S. shutting their doors.

#7 Retail chains continue to go belly up at a staggering rate.  Today, it was being reported that two large retailers in the Northeast have made a decision to file for bankruptcy…

Two sister chains that sell sporting goods have filed for bankruptcy as retailers continue to struggle.

Bob’s Stores, which sells athletic and casual clothing, and outdoor gear retailer Eastern Mountain Sports together have 50 stores across the northeast of America.

#8 We just learned that consumer confidence in the U.S. dropped lower this month…

US consumer confidence teetered slightly in June as Americans grew a little warier about the future, new data released Tuesday showed.

The Conference Board’s latest consumer confidence index dipped to 100.4 in June from a downwardly revised level of 101.3 in May.

#9 The initial consumer confidence reading has been revised down in 7 of the last 8 months.

#10 Housing in the U.S. is now more unaffordable than it has ever been before…

The housing cost burden has hit a record, according to a new report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Home prices are now 47% higher than they were in early 2020, with the median sale price now five times the median household income, according to the study.

#11 As I discussed yesterday, the homeless population in the city of Chicago tripled from January 2023 to January 2024…

The number of Chicagoans living in city shelters or on city streets tripled between January 2023 and January 2024, according to the annual survey used by federal officials to track homelessness, city officials announced Friday.

Those at the bottom of the economic food chain are being hit the hardest by the harsh economic conditions that we have been experiencing.

Homelessness, poverty, hunger and theft are all on the rise, and many of those that serve struggling communities say that they are being absolutely overwhelmed because they simply do not have sufficient resources to meet all of the needs.

Sadly, I am entirely convinced that this is just the beginning.  I believe that conditions will eventually become much harsher as the economy continues to deteriorate during the months ahead.

But Joe Biden and his minions insist that everything is just great.

In fact, they would like you to believe that the economy is “booming” right now.

You can believe that if you want, but the cold, hard numbers that we keep getting directly contradict the endless stream of propaganda that we are constantly being fed.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s  books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.