The Economy

Goodbye Middle Class: 50 Percent Of All U.S. Workers Made $34,612.04 Or Less Last Year

October 17, 2021October 17, 2021 by Michael Snyder

If we keep going down this path, soon we won’t have much of a “middle class” at all. When I first started writing about the economy many years ago, I often wrote about the tens of millions of “working poor” Americans that were enduring so many hardships. But at this point most of the nation now falls into the “working poor” category. That isn’t because wages haven’t been going up. Little by little, wages have been incrementally rising year after year, but meanwhile the cost of living has been absolutely soaring. Paychecks have not even come close to keeping up with inflation, and this has been eviscerating the middle class. Today, the majority of the country is in constant “survival mode” financially, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

When I was growing up, retailers that catered to the middle class did exceptionally well. My mother was constantly taking me and my siblings to JCPenney and Sears, and it seemed like that was where virtually everyone shopped.

But now such retailers are rapidly going extinct. Today, the retailers that are doing well are those that cater to the very bottom of the economic food chain (Walmart, dollar stores, etc.) or those that cater to the very top of the economic food chain.

And that is because there isn’t much in between those two extremes anymore.

The Social Security Administration has just released final wage statistics for 2020, and they are extremely alarming. According to the figures that they have given to us, the median wage for 2020 was just $34,612.04…

By definition, 50 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the median wage, which is estimated to be $34,612.04 for 2020.

It is really depressing to think that half of all U.S. workers made $34,612.04 or less last year.

That is less than $3,000 a month, and that is before taxes.

Needless to say, trying to survive in a major U.S. city on that kind of income is not easy in today’s economic environment.

Of course $34,612.04 would have been a very nice yearly income back in 1960, because back then the cost of living was much lower. The following comes from an article authored by MN Gordon…

In 1960, for example, a gallon of gas cost $0.31 per gallon. Similarly, in 1960 a gallon of milk cost $1.00 per gallon. Currently, the average price of gas and the average price of milk are $3.28 per gallon and $3.68 per gallon, respectively. That’s upwards of a 958 percent increase for gas and 268 percent increase for milk over the last 60 years.

Back in 1960, you could buy an entire house in a nice middle class neighborhood for $34,612.04.

Today, that would barely be a down payment on a dilapidated shack in many parts of the country.

In recent weeks, I have frequently pointed out that there are millions of jobs available in the U.S. right now.

But the vast majority of them are highly undesirable because they pay “working poor” wages.

So many people out there are working as hard as they can and they still can’t make ends meet. In fact, one recent poll discovered that 59 percent of Americans that make less than $50,000 a year have experienced “serious financial problems in the past few months”…

The poll showed a sharp income divide, with 59% of those with annual incomes below $50,000 reporting serious financial problems in the past few months, compared with 18% of households with annual incomes of $50,000 or more.

As I have discussed so many times over the years, we have gotten to a point where most of the population is living paycheck to paycheck.

And when you are living paycheck to paycheck, all it takes is one bad break to push you into financial distress.

Sadly, things are going to get even worse for ordinary Americans in the coming months because inflation continues to rise very aggressively…

Inflation accelerated in September, with consumer price pressures across America showing no sign of easing ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season.

Consumer prices increased 5.4% from the year-ago period, slightly faster than their 5.3% increase the previous month and on par with the increases in June and July.

Needless to say, those numbers actually greatly understate what we are facing, because the way inflation is calculated by the government has changed dozens of times over the years.

As I am constantly reminding my readers, if inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would already be well into double digit territory.

In other words, the sort of inflation that we faced during the Jimmy Carter era is already here.

And CNN just admitted that prices “aren’t coming back to earth anytime soon”.

If prices continue to rise much faster than paychecks do, the middle class will just keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

Sadly, politicians seem determined to hasten the demise of the middle class by pushing millions more Americans out of decent paying jobs in the months ahead. But in the process, they will also be creating critical staff shortages. For example, just consider what just happened at a hospital in Lewiston, Maine…

The administrators of Central Maine Healthcare in Lewiston, Maine, enacted a vax policy demanding all employees to take the vaccine. But more than 250 employees refused to comply before the deadline. These employees were subsequently fired.

Unfortunately for patients, about 170 of those employees were needed to staff the intensive care unit. Consequently, the hospital had to shut down its ICU because of the firings.

Because it lost so many employees, the hospital plans on cutting intensive care beds by 50% and reducing the number of medical surgical beds by 40%, the Bangor Daily News reported.

Isn’t that nuts?

Of course the same type of scenario is playing out at hospital after hospital all over the country right now.

And you can’t just hire random people off the streets to be doctors and nurses, because it takes many years of training to become a doctor or a nurse.

So let us hope that we don’t have to deal with any sort of a major health crisis this winter, because our medical system would become overwhelmed very rapidly.

These are such ominous times for our economy, and these are such ominous times for our nation as a whole.

In the months ahead, there will be more inflation, more shortages, and more questionable decisions by our leaders.

Events are truly beginning to spiral out of control, and America will never be quite the same ever again.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

An Industry Insider Just Revealed The Truth About What Is Really Behind The Shortages At Our Local Supermarkets

September 26, 2021September 26, 2021 by Michael Snyder

The supply chain crisis that our supermarkets are facing is far worse than the mainstream media has been telling us. The mainstream media keeps trying to put a happy face on the “temporary” shortages, but an industry insider has let me know what is really going on behind the scenes. This particular insider runs a grocery store in Maine, and he says that things are as bad as he has ever seen. In fact, he says that he has “never seen anything close to what is happening now”. The email that he sent me the other day greatly alarmed me, and I asked him if I could share it with all of you. He gave me permission to do so, as long as I didn’t use his name. I haven’t received an email this startling in a long time. As you read this email, I think that you will quickly understand why I am saying that…

I’m self employed for 25 years, now, independent IGA affiliated grocery store in coastal Maine.

Supply issues are real! My supplier has limited us on orders for about a month now (limited the physical number of cases we can order)

Their issue is/was mainly the help crisis in their warehouse … order pickers and truck drivers. Same story everywhere, I know. Many of the items your reader commented about in this article are the same here … very limited gatorade, and gallon water is sketchy at best. Sometimes we get it, sometimes we don’t. I’ve not seen many supply issues in produce, rather poor quality issues there. Much more than normal. Deli / bakery … yes, lots of out of stocks and “long term unavailable” as my supplier likes to word it on the invoice.

In the center store – dry grocery … like others are saying, tons of out of stocks.

Meat supply is “fair” but pricing is extremely high. Shockingly high to me. The middle class is slowly being destroyed with these prices hikes … death by 1000 cuts of sorts, I guess.

My Frito Lay delivery person tells me that he is getting 55-60% of what he’s ordering. My last Nabisco order had 30% out of stocks. Over the years, we always get 99-100% of what was ordered. Pepperidge Farm Cookies … he tells me some weeks he’s only getting HALF of what he orders. These folks all work on commission …. if they don’t (or can’t) sell it to me … they don’t get paid. Or get paid less. When we place our liquor order (twice a week) out of stocks there are running 30% most orders. This commodity was ALWAYS 99.5 to 100% fill rate over the years …. always.

It’s frustrating. As I said … self employed 25 years, and worked for Kroger for 25 years before that … so 50-51 years in this business.

Never seen anything close to what is happening now. Add to that — a far left governor, and both houses here in Maine democrat controlled …. I just know we are on the verge of another mask mandate, and a lock down of sorts would not surprise me again as we move into the colder months. As you’ve seen I’m sure, Maine is in the news with COVID case surges (so they say)

I come to work every day just holding my breath for what is next … for our business and the 35 people I employ here in Maine.

This industry insider is trying to order normal quantities, but his suppliers are often unable to completely fulfill them.

As you can see from the email, the shortages are widespread, and this is the worst that they have been during the entire pandemic so far.

If there is something that you need to stock up on, I would grab it if it is still on the shelves, because pretty soon it may be completely gone.

On Friday I went to the grocery store and they were out of several things that I wanted to purchase. Unfortunately, we continue to get more confirmations that this is going to become the “new normal”.

For example, according to Bloomberg meat reserves in this country have plunged to dangerously low levels…

A U.S. report Wednesday showed beef reserves down 7.7% from a year ago in August. Poultry supplies slumped 20% and pork bellies, which are sliced into bacon, dropped 44% to the lowest levels since 2017.

In most cases supermarkets still have meat on the shelves, but it is definitely a lot more expensive than it used to be, and we are being told to brace ourselves for more price hikes in the months ahead.

Of course other types of retailers are facing severe supply shocks as well. A few days ago, another reader sent me an email in which he described what he is seeing at his local pharmacy…

The big issue, however, is at the local drug store; Rite Aid. The place is thin at best and stripped in some areas (last week there was no Zinc available). The beer cases are notably sparse. The main issue, however, is at the pharmacy. Six or eight months ago you could walk in and have your prescription filled inside of 20 minutes. If you called in the prescription the day before it was waiting for you. Not so any more. Yesterday I went to pick up an RX for my wife that had been called in last week. Not only was it not ready but I had to wait an hour before it was filled. There were nine cars in the drive up queue. I opted to walk in and it was nearly as bad. The young woman that helped me was clearly not local with bicolor hair and a large, glaringly obvious, in your face, Baphomet symbol around her neck.

I had a chat with the manager on the way out and asked him what was up with the Pharmacy staffing. I hadn’t seen the regular pharmacist for a few months. He blamed it all on the city for not having any affordable housing (lame) and mentioned that Albertson’s pharmacy, Albertson’s and Ridley’s were all very short on help (true).

Right now, dozens and dozens of drugs are in short supply.

In fact, the official FDA drug shortage list has 149 entries on it right now.

That is the most that I have ever seen.

As shortages persist, retailers are going to start implementing more limits. Last week, we learned that Costco has already started to pull the trigger…

Costco on Thursday said it was reinstating limits on purchases of toilet paper, paper towels and bottled water.

They don’t call it “rationing”, but that is essentially what it is.

And we are also being told to expect significant price increases, because supply chain issues are causing costs to go through the roof…

Costco this week joined the long list of retailers sounding the alarm about escalating shipping prices and the accompanying supply chain issues. The warehouse retailer, which had a similar cautionary tone in May, was joined by athletic wear giant Nike and economic bellwethers FedEx and General Mills in discussing similar concerns.

The cost to ship containers overseas has soared in recent months. Getting a 40-foot container from Shanghai to New York cost about $2,000 a year and a half ago, just before the Covid pandemic. Now, it runs some $16,000, according to Bank of America.

I have been warning that rampant inflation and shortages were coming for a long time, but a lot of people didn’t want to believe me at first.

If you were one of those doubters, do you believe me now?

During the first half of this year, many economic optimists assured us that the U.S. economy would be “booming” by this point.

But instead our economic infrastructure is being shaken on a very basic level, and we are facing enormous price hikes and very painful shortages throughout the rest of this year and into next year.

Events have begun to slide out of control, and it certainly wouldn’t take too much to push us into a full-blown avalanche.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

The Mainstream Media Is Using Terms Like “Worsening” And “Foreseeable Future” To Describe The Shortages

September 23, 2021September 23, 2021 by Michael Snyder

Yes, these shortages are really happening, and now the mainstream media is warning us to brace ourselves because they are going to get even worse. After the article that I posted yesterday, emails came pouring in from people all around the country. There were a few that didn’t want to believe that things are as bad as I was saying, but there were lots of other emails that confirmed that conditions are at least as bad as I described. In fact, there was one extremely alarming email from someone that works in the supermarket industry that I hope to share with all of you in the coming days once I get permission to do so.

For most of us, we have lived our entire lives without ever having to be concerned about shortages. In fact, just a few years ago it would have seemed crazy to suggest that we were on the verge of widespread shortages here in the United States.

But now here we are, and we are being told that the shortages are going to continue to intensify. In fact, the Washington Post is telling us that the global chip shortage is showing signs of “worsening”…

The global semiconductor shortage that has paralyzed automakers for nearly a year shows signs of worsening, as new coronavirus infections halt chip assembly lines in Southeast Asia, forcing more car companies and electronics manufacturers to suspend production.

A wave of delta-variant cases in Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines is causing production delays at factories that cut and package semiconductors, creating new bottlenecks on top of those caused by soaring demand for chips.

That is really bad news, because the chip shortage is affecting thousands of other industries.

For example, global vehicle production is way down due to the chip crisis, and this has resulted in a growing shortage of new vehicles on dealer lots all over the nation…

The chip famine is starving the global auto industry and putting car buyers on a strict diet. So far this year, seven million cars that were supposed to be produced haven’t been, according to IHS Markit data. Auto companies are shutting down production lines for weeks at a time and furloughing employees as a result of the chip shortage. Toyota has slashed its production 40% in September.

All this is hitting consumers. Car dealers’ lots across the U.S. are sparse. The inventory of new cars in the U.S. is only about 30% of pre-pandemic levels, and buyers snap up used cars as soon as they find them.

Of course we aren’t facing a shortage of everything.

There are certain products that are still quite plentiful.

And there are some areas that are being affected a lot more than others.

So what you are seeing in your neck of the woods may differ from what other people are experiencing.

But there are some shortages that are definitely being felt all over the country.

When the COVID pandemic first started to sweep across the U.S. last year, it sparked a huge run on toilet paper, and now it is starting to happen again…

Costco Wholesale is having trouble fulfilling toilet paper orders.

The membership-only warehouse retail chain is issuing a warning to customers that have purchased the common household item online, saying they may face delays in receiving their orders.

Unfortunately, this could potentially be just the beginning.

According to one expert that was interviewed by Fox Business, there will soon be another “massive shortage” of toilet paper…

The U.S. will experience another “massive shortage” of toilet paper soon as supply chains continue to suffer due to pandemic-related issues, one retail expert warned.

“Product shortages as bad as they were in the beginning of COVID are coming back,” Burt Flickinger said on FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria.”

Did you ever imagine that we would be talking about such a thing in late 2021?

A lot of optimists out there had assumed that the economy would be “booming” by now.

But instead, the machinery of our economy has gotten gummed up really badly. At this point, there is even a growing shortage of alcoholic beverages…

The Pennsylvania state board in charge of consumer liquor sales announced last week that it was limiting customers to two bottles of certain alcoholic beverages per day. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board said the purchase limit on select items — including Hennessy Cognac, Buffalo Trace bourbon and Patrón tequila — will be in place for the “foreseeable future.”

Liquor store customers in North Carolina are encountering “out of stock” signs instead of their favorite spirits, local TV station WTVD reported, amid an ongoing supply shortage there, too.

Of course so many of these problems could be solved if we simply had enough workers.

As I discussed the other day, we are in the midst of the worst labor shortage that we have ever experienced. All over the nation critical labor shortages are crippling the ability of organizations to get things done, and now Joe Biden’s new mandates threaten to make things a lot worse.

If you can believe it, even NPR is running stories about how Biden’s mandates are going to cause gigantic headaches for employers…

“I can’t afford to lose anyone,” says Ted LeNeave, CEO of Accura HealthCare, which operates 34 nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota. Because of staffing shortages, they’ve had to limit admissions, turning down patients coming from hospitals.

With about 1,000 of his employees — 38% of his workforce — unvaccinated, LeNeave is calling on the federal government to provide a testing option for health care workers.

Sadly, if Biden does not change his approach, that one company alone will have to let about a thousand workers go…

“I just don’t see how I can lay off a thousand people,” says LeNeave. “I’d have no one to take care of the patients, and there’s nowhere to send the patients.”

Biden’s mandates should start going into effect around the end of the year, and that could represent a real turning point for the economy.

We are moving into such troubled times, but most people desperately want to believe that better times are just around the corner.

Through good times and bad, the U.S. economy has always been highly resilient, and most of us would like to assume that it will continue to be highly resilient.

But the truth is that things are starting to break down on a very basic level, and the outlook as we head toward the end of the year is not good at all.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Before They Were An Inconvenience, But Now The Shortages Are Really Beginning To Sting

September 22, 2021September 22, 2021 by Michael Snyder

Have you noticed that store shelves are starting to get emptier and emptier? During the panic shopping that was sparked by the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020, there were very intense shortages of certain items, but those shortages did not last very long at all. But now there are widespread shortages in just about every sector of our economy, and they are starting to become quite painful. Unfortunately, we are being told to expect the shortages to intensify as we head into the holiday season. That is extremely alarming, because in many areas the shortages are already quite severe.

I had been away from the news for a couple of days, and when I came back there were lots more stories about our ongoing shortages. For example, the following comes from an excellent piece by Matt Stoller…

There are shortages in everything from ocean shipping containers to chlorine tablets to railroad capacity to black pipe (the piping that houses wires inside buildings) to spicy chicken breasts to specialized plastic bags necessary for making vaccines. Moreover, prices for all sorts of items, from housing to food, are changing in weird ways. Beef, for instance, is at near record highs for consumers, but cattle ranchers are getting paid much less than they used to for their cows.

In my entire life, I have never seen anything like this.

Even the Federal Reserve is admitting that we have a major problem at this point. In fact, in the latest Beige Book the Fed referred to the shortages a whopping 80 times.

In certain parts of the country, these shortages are really beginning to sting. A reader just emailed me about what is going on in his section of Connecticut, and he said that I could share this with all of you…

I am just a regular guy in Connecticut, who has been watching things very closely, especially from a Biblical perspective. I wanted to quickly share with you an experience my wife and I had about two weeks ago at a medium-size, family run grocery store near Waterbury, CT.

Seemingly overnight, we noticed there were little yellow signs on the shelves, where certain SKUs used to be. Not entire lines, but individual SKUs. For example, a flavor of oatmeal, certain cereals, etc. The signs said something to the effect of: “This item is no longer available due to supply chain constraints”. I would say there were a few hundred signs in total throughout the store. It wasn’t until we got to the juice/water aisle that we noticed the larger problem: there was no Gatorade (?) and no bottled water (gallon jugs).

I have befriended the manager over the years, so I asked him where the water is, and he told me “…they only will give us so many bottles”. I asked who ‘they’ is, and he said the manufacturer: they were being rationed. As he said this, a truck driver happened to walk by and joined in on the conversation. He told us that he just got back from Maine, after a three-day trip- a trip that normally takes him a few hours. He said he, and all of the other truck drivers, sit at the warehouses for days, waiting for their trucks to be filled. To be clear, I asked him how long it normally takes, and he said a few hours at the most.

On our way out, I remembered that we needed dog food, so we went to the pet aisle, and there was no cat litter, and no dog food, save a few little bags of the cheapest stuff. All of the things Steve Quayle has been saying about food and water shortages suddenly became reality. I always believed him, but now I was seeing it, at the very local level.

We then decided to go to PetSmart to get the dog food. Empty. The entire dog food shelf was empty except for a few bags!

Are similar things happening in your part of the country?

If so, please feel free to email me and let me know.

We need to share intel with one another, because the mainstream media is not telling us the truth.

Of course the shortages would not be as severe if we could actually unload all of the container ships that are backlogged at our ports. Right now, dozens of container ships are sitting along the west coast waiting to be unloaded…

The number of container ships at anchor or drifting in San Pedro Bay off the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has blown through all previous records.

The latest peak: There were an all-time-high 73 container ships in the queue in San Pedro Bay on Sunday, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California (the tally inched back to 69 on Tuesday). Of the ships offshore Sunday, 36 were forced to drift because anchorages were full.

Theoretically, the numbers — already surreally high — could go even higher than this. While designated anchorages are limited, the space for ships to safely drift offshore is not.

This is the same problem that I talked about the other day.

At one time we had more able-bodied workers than we knew what to do with, but now there is an extreme shortage of workers all over the globe.

Sadly, it has gotten to a point where we don’t even have enough people to drive our kids to school…

School districts around the country are struggling to fill thousands of bus driver positions as worker shortages lead to late arrivals and last-minute scrambles to bring retired workers back onto payrolls.

The shortages are so bad in some places that districts are taking extraordinary steps to get kids to school as students return to in-person classes this fall. Philadelphia’s school district will pay families $300 a month, or $3,000 for the year, to opt out of transportation services and get their kids to school on their own. Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia is offering a $2,500 bonus to new drivers — $100 more than the school district in the county seat, Charlottesville, is offering.

This is the worst labor shortage that the U.S. has ever faced, and it just keeps getting worse.

So where did all the people go?

Without enough able-bodied workers, our economy is experiencing a whole host of difficulties right now. And when you consider everything else that has been going on, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Joe Biden’s approval rating just sunk to a new record low…

Eight months after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, his job approval rating has fallen six percentage points to 43%, the lowest of his presidency. For the first time, a majority, 53%, now disapproves of Biden’s performance.

These findings are from a Sept. 1-17 Gallup poll that was conducted after the U.S. military evacuated more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan. The United States’ exit from the nation’s longest war was marred by the Taliban’s quick takeover of most of the country and a suicide bombing at the airport in Kabul, which killed 13 U.S. service members. Over the same period, COVID-19 infection rates, nationally, were surging, leading to hospital overflows in some regions.

And there are some parts of the nation where his approval rating is absolutely disastrous. Just check out the latest numbers from Iowa…

Just 31% of Iowans approved of how Joe Biden is handling his duties as president while a whopping 62% disapprove. Biden’s disapproval number is below the lowest ever measured by ace pollster J. Ann Selzer for former presidents Donald Trump (35%) and Barack Obama (36%).

“This is a bad poll for Joe Biden, and it’s playing out in everything that he touches right now,” Selzer told the Des Moines Register.

Less than a year ago, a lot of Americans were viewing Biden as some sort of a “savior” figure.

That didn’t exactly work out, did it?

Many of us have been warning that shortages and high levels of inflation were coming for a very long time, but of course most of the population is not interested in such warnings.

They just want to be told that everything is going to be okay.

But the truth is that everything is not going to be okay, and the pain that we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

This Is The Weirdest Employment Market That We Have Ever Seen

September 3, 2021September 3, 2021 by Michael Snyder

Things just continue to get crazier and crazier. In all of the years that I have been writing about the economy, I have never seen anything like this. The latest employment report that was released on Friday is being described as a “huge disappointment” because the number of Americans that were hired last month was way, way below expectations. Employment only rose by 235,000, but economists were expecting a number about triple that size. Normally when this sort of thing happens it is because of a lack of available jobs. But that is definitely not the case right now. There are literally millions upon millions of jobs that are open, but for a variety of reasons people simply don’t want them.

A lot of experts are blaming COVID for the “worker shortage”, and without a doubt fear of COVID is causing some potential workers to stay home.

In other cases, mask mandates and vaccine mandates are causing people to reject open jobs that they would otherwise accept.

But I don’t think that those are the biggest reasons for the “worker shortage”.

The types of jobs where we are seeing the most severe shortages of workers are jobs that require long hours and hard physical work. These days, there are millions upon millions of Americans that just don’t want to drive trucks, load trains, stock shelves or work at our ports.

Unfortunately, the machinery of our economy comes grinding to a halt without such workers, and we are seeing that right now.

These days, millions of Americans would rather stay home and collect government benefits rather than work a difficult low paying job. In fact, the numbers clearly show that unemployed workers are going back to work much faster in states where enhanced unemployment benefits have been cut off.

That is an easy problem for our politicians to fix, but we are facing another growing trend that won’t be so easy to rectify.

Our young people are increasingly gravitating to the “Internet economy”. They are figuring out that it doesn’t make much sense to put in endless hours at an entry level job when so many others are making big bucks as “social media influencers” instead.

During this pandemic, the White House has invited quite a few top “social media influencers” to the White House, but I don’t think that they have invited a single truck driver.

Of course there are others that have made millions upon millions of dollars buying and selling cryptocurrencies.

Nobody is ever going to become a millionaire unloading container ships, but tons of people have become millionaires by trading cryptos or by becoming social media celebrities.

So why should our young people choose to do the low paying work that nobody else wants to do, when the Internet offers so many other promising opportunities?

I believe that this is the biggest reason why the number of Americans that are employed is still more than 5 million less than it was just prior to the start of the pandemic…

Nearly a year and a half into the recovery, the US economy remains 5.3 million jobs short of where it was in February 2020, before Covid-19 threw a wrench into the gears.

It has been reported that there are currently 9.8 million job openings in the United States.

If you want a job, you can go out and find one.

But the vast majority of the jobs that are available are low paying jobs that are not particularly pleasant.

And the rampant inflation that we are now experiencing is rapidly causing those jobs to lose the limited appeal that they once had.

In a desperate attempt to keep their low paid workforce, officials at Walmart just announced that they will be raising wages for hundreds of thousands of workers…

Walmart is raising the pay for more than 565,000 store employees.

The world’s largest retailer announced Thursday that U.S. store workers in its frontend, food and consumable, and general merchandise workgroups will receive at least a $1 an hour raise.

Elsewhere, a McDonald’s in Oregon has now decided to hire kids as young as 14 after raising wages to 15 dollars an hour did not work…

Businesses across the country are turning to teens as young as 14 to cope with a dire labor shortage, with one McDonald’s in Oregon drawing attention with a huge banner touting the new policy.

The McDonald’s franchise in Medford hung the banner after finding that raising the minimum wage to $15 didn’t bring in many new applications, but opening the door to younger applicants did, operator Heather Coleman told Business Insider.

And earlier today I was stunned to learn that Amazon has decided to start recruiting pot smokers to drive their delivery vehicles…

But it’s not just Amazon’s in-house workforce that needs expanding. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Amazon has found a solution for the contract delivery drivers it uses to deliver packages from its fulfillment centers to customers’ doorsteps: Recruit pot smokers.

That’s right: despite the fact that driving while high on any substance is illegal, the company is advising its delivery partners to prominently advertise that they don’t screen applicants for marijuana use, according to emails between Amazon and contractors reviewed by Bloomberg.

But no matter what these companies do, it is just going to be really tough to recruit low paid workers in this environment because our leaders have flooded the system with so much cash.

Young people will continue to gravitate toward opportunities on the Internet that they think will make them rich, but meanwhile the machinery of our economy will continue to break down.

The widespread shortages that we have been witnessing just continue to get worse, and earlier today the Wall Street Journal ran a big story about the nightmare that the U.S. auto industry is currently facing…

The U.S. auto industry is heading into one of its biggest selling weekends of the year with dealership lots stripped bare of inventory and some buyers having to drive great distances to secure a new ride.

For a second year in a row, car shoppers are facing bleak prospects in trying to buy a car this Labor Day weekend. The period has historically been a time of blowout deals and big sales events for car companies and dealerships trying to clear out old vehicle stock to make way for the new model year.

On a very basic level, we need workers that will build stuff, move stuff and sell stuff.

Unfortunately, those jobs just aren’t very appealing today.

But if you think that you may want a job at some point in the foreseeable future, I would encourage you to grab one while you still can.

Because this current state of affairs will certainly not last indefinitely, and it won’t be too long before we see some pretty dramatic shifts in the employment marketplace.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written five others that are available on Amazon.com including “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

This Is Definitely Going To Be “Not A Normal September” For The Rapidly Imploding U.S. Economy

September 2, 2021September 2, 2021 by Michael Snyder

The “good times” were supposed to be rolling by now, but instead the wheels are starting to come off, and the economic outlook for the rest of the year is not good at all. Just yesterday, I warned my readers that things were about to get worse, and it only took exactly a single day for that to actually happen. As you will see below, major factory shutdowns were just announced, and that is going to make shortages even worse. Fear of COVID is restricting production all over the globe, and meanwhile national governments and central banks have been absolutely flooding their systems with fresh cash. As a result, we now have way too much money chasing way too few goods and services, and anyone that has taken ECON 101 will tell you that will inevitably result in higher prices and shortages.

As I discussed yesterday, if there is something that you need to buy, run out and get it now because the shortages are only going to get worse in the coming months.

On Thursday, General Motors shocked the entire nation when it announced that it is going to be closing down almost all of its manufacturing facilities due to our ongoing shortage of computer chips…

General Motors will idle nearly all its assembly plants in North America starting Monday as the COVID-19 pandemic affects production of semiconductor chips overseas.

GM said its Arlington Assembly in Texas, where it makes its highly profitable full-size SUVs, will run regular production next week, along with Flint Assembly in Michigan, where it makes its heavy-duty pickups, Bowling Green Assembly in Kentucky, where it makes its Corvette, and a portion of Lansing Grand River Assembly in Michigan, where it will make some Chevrolet Camaro and Cadillac Blackwing cars.

I knew that things were bad, but I didn’t know that they had gotten this bad.

Ford also announced that it will be slashing production due to a lack of chips…

Ford Motor is once again cutting production of its F-150 pickup truck and other highly profitable vehicles due to the ongoing global shortage of semiconductor chips.

The automaker informed employees Wednesday of the cuts, which also impact production of its larger Super Duty pickups and Expedition SUV.

This was supposed to be a time when vehicle sales were soaring to all-time highs, but thanks to a lack of chips the number of new Ford vehicles that were sold last month was down by a whopping 33 percent compared to a year ago…

U.S. sales of Ford Motor’s new vehicles last month declined by 33.1% from a year earlier due to an ongoing global shortage of semiconductor chips that’s wreaking havoc on the automotive industry, the company said Thursday.

The Detroit automaker’s sales capped off a dismal month of U.S. auto sales in August, which plummeted to an adjusted selling rate of 13.09 million vehicles. That’s the worst pace since June 2020 and down from this year’s peak of 18.5 million in April, according to auto data firm Motor Intelligence.

Demand is not the problem.

There is simply not enough Ford vehicles to go around right now, and this has pushed dealer inventories to frighteningly low levels…

Dealers only have about 942,000 vehicles in inventory for retail sale, compared with roughly 3 million before the coronavirus pandemic two years ago, according to Thomas King, president of the data and analytics division at J.D. Power.

Of course it isn’t just the auto industry that is dealing with these sorts of problems.

Supply chains all over the globe are in a state of complete and utter chaos, and it just seems to keep getting worse with each passing day. I really like how Wolf Richter has described the current state of affairs…

Yesterday, just outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, a record 44 container ships were anchored, waiting. And there are hundreds of these ships hung up somewhere globally, trying to get into a port, or they’re being rerouted to different ports. And all this takes time.

And containers are stuck in ports because railroads are backlogged, trucking companies are troubled by driver shortages, and containers are hung up in railyards and clog them up to where some railroads have stopped routing trains to those particular railyards until the backlog is cleared, thereby further contributing to the pileup of containers at ports.

And each extra day that a loaded container doesn’t get to its destination is a day that it cannot be unloaded and returned to the flow of containers, and cannot be sent to a manufacturer that has goods ready to ship but cannot ship them because they cannot get empty containers.

In my last article, I discussed the fact that experts are already warning that Christmas has been ruined because of all the mayhem.

And now fear of Delta and other variants threatens to gum up the works even more. Most Americans had assumed that we would be “returning to normal” by now, but instead we seem to be going in reverse in a lot of ways…

The delta variant of the coronavirus is preventing a return to normal and pumping the brakes on the economic recovery. Major corporations such as Apple, Facebook and Ford have pushed back their return-to-office dates from September to January. Schools are reinstating mask mandates and, in some cases, dealing with virus outbreaks, sending students home to quarantine. Restaurants and retailers are scaling back hours, as workers remain hesitant to return to lower-paying service jobs in which they are also more exposed to the virus. Meanwhile, brands including Nike and Gap are warning that factories in Vietnam and elsewhere aren’t operating at full capacity and that some items may not be available as the coronavirus surges around the world.

Authorities thought that they would be able to have the pandemic under control by now, but they have dramatically failed.

As long as these variants are sweeping across the globe like wildfire, there definitely will not be a return to “normal” any time soon.

The machinery of our economy is being shaken at a very basic level, and many believe that this is just the beginning.

For many years there have been warning signs, but our leaders have somehow been able to hold the U.S. economy together.

But now inflation is out of control, shortages are becoming exceedingly painful and confidence in our national leaders has plummeted to extremely low levels.

We haven’t even reached the official end of summer yet, and things are already starting to become very, very interesting.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written five others that are available on Amazon.com including “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The Media Says “The Delta Variant Stole Christmas”, And Severe Shortages Are Projected To Stretch Long Into 2022

September 1, 2021September 1, 2021 by Michael Snyder

Thanks to extreme disruptions caused by the global response to the pandemic, millions upon millions of Americans are going to have a very disappointing holiday season. Supply chains are in a state of complete and utter chaos all over the world, and now we are being told that it will remain this way for the foreseeable future. And that is actually a best case scenario. If a new variant comes along that causes even more global disruptions, the shortages that we are experiencing right now could become even more dire. We are so vulnerable right now, and any unexpected twists or turns could easily make things a lot worse.

Earlier in 2021, the mainstream media was full of optimistic talk about how wonderful the second half of the year would be.

But now reality is setting in. The following comes from a Washington Post article entitled “How the delta variant stole Christmas: Empty shelves, long waits — and yes, higher prices”…

“I’m afraid there is simply not enough time to get products on the shelf this year,” said Isaac Larian, chief executive of MGA Entertainment, the toy giant behind Rainbow High and such popular lines as L.O.L. Surprise and Little Tikes. “The holidays are going to be very tough and, frankly, a lot of families are not going to be able to get the toys they want.”

Mounting challenges — including factory shutdowns, computer chip shortages and clogged ports — are rattling the industry as it prepares for the crucial holiday shopping season, an eight-week window that can account for more than half of a retailer’s annual sales.

Didn’t Kamala Harris just give us a very similar warning?

If there are toys that you want to buy, you should try to get them as soon as possible, because the supply crunch is only going to intensify.

Even the biggest voices in the mainstream media are now admitting that these shortages are not going to be resolved any time soon. The following comes from a New York Times article entitled “The World Is Still Short of Everything. Get Used to It.”…

Pandemic-related product shortages — from computer chips to construction materials — were supposed to be resolved by now. Instead, the world has gained a lesson in the ripple effects of disruption.

The economic optimists assured us that the economy would be “booming” by now, but instead the shortages are worse than ever.

Earlier today, I came across a local news story about the painful shortages that small businesses in western Massachusetts are currently dealing with…

This has everything to do with the supply chains. Businesses all over western Massachusetts are scrambling because they can’t get their hands on the most basic items. Silverware, takeaway containers, food items, you name it, and it’s probably in short supply.

Of course many of the largest corporations in the entire world are dealing with the same headaches.

According to Elon Musk, Tesla has been experiencing “super crazy supply chain shortages”…

Elon Musk said that supply-chain snags have hindered Tesla’s plans in 2021.

“2021 has been the year of super crazy supply chain shortages, so it wouldn’t matter if we had 17 new products, as none would ship,” Musk tweeted on Wednesday.

For many companies, one of the biggest sources of pain has been a persistent lack of computer chips.

This is a worldwide phenomenon, and it is the reason why game systems like the PS5 and the XBox Series X have been so exceedingly difficult to acquire…

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the demand for microchips has far exceeded supply, causing problems in every industry that relies on computers. And if you’re a Decoder listener, you know that that is every industry. Right now, major automakers have unfinished cars sitting in parking lots waiting for chips to be installed. Game consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X are impossible to find. And even things like microwaves and refrigerators are impacted, because they contain simple controller chips.

We were promised that things would be getting better by now, but instead this crisis just continues to escalate.

In fact, Toyota just announced that they are going to be cutting global production by 40 percent because of the shortage of chips…

In the face of an enduring shortage of computer chips, Toyota this month announced that it would slash its global production of cars by 40%. Factories around the world are limiting operations — despite powerful demand for their wares — because they cannot buy metal parts, plastics and other raw materials. Construction companies are paying more for paint, lumber and hardware, while waiting weeks and sometimes months to receive what they need.

As bad as things are now, it looks like they are about to get even worse.

One prominent shipping company just declared that they expect this crisis to persist “until the first half of 2022”…

From anchorage stats to forward arrivals, ocean bookings, and inventory-to-sales numbers, all the latest data paints the same picture: The U.S. congestion crisis has never been more severe than it is now — and it’s getting worse.

Hope for any relief this year has vanished. French carrier CMA CGM is the latest in a long line of market participants to push back its timeline on normalization. Capacity constraints “are expected to continue until the first half of 2022,” CMA CGM warned on Friday.

Alarmingly, America’s import system — which is already stretched to the limit — looks like it will have to handle even higher volumes next month. The likely outcome: Carriers will be forced to cancel more sailings as terminal berths max out and ships get stuck at anchor, even more cargo will get “rolled” (pushed to a future sailing), and importers will face even longer delays and even less slot availability as they scramble to build inventories for holiday sales.

Others are even more pessimistic.

Just check out this quote…

“There is no end in sight,” said Alan Holland, chief executive of Keelvar, a company based in Cork, Ireland, that makes software used to manage supply chains. “Everybody should be assuming we are going to have an extended period of disruptions.”

“No end in sight”?

“An extended period of disruptions”?

And what is going to happen if another variant comes along that creates a lot more fear?

Just today, the WHO issued a very ominous warning about a variant that is now known as “Mu”…

The World Health Organization has issued a warning about yet another new COVID-19 variant it fears could potentially evade vaccines.

That variant, called Mu, was first detected in Colombia in January, and has been announced just as the Delta variant finally appears to be peaking in the U.S.

This “Mu variant” has already spread to over 40 different nations, and there have already been more than 2,000 confirmed cases in the United States…

Over 4,600 cases of the variant, whose scientific name is B.1.621, have been spotted since then, and it has spread to more than 40 countries.

Almost 2,000 cases of the variant have been detected in the United States.

So how much worse will our supply chain disruptions become if that variant starts spreading across the country like wildfire?

Most people don’t realize that we are so close to the sort of extreme economic chaos that I have been warning about.

The second half of this year was supposed to be a time when our lives started to go back to “normal”, but that is obviously now out the window.

Instead, the rest of 2021 is looking exceedingly bleak, and at any moment another sudden “surprise” could take our problems to a whole new level.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written five others that are available on Amazon.com including “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The Shortages Are Going To Get Worse Later This Year As Global Supply Chains Increasingly Falter

August 22, 2021August 22, 2021 by Michael Snyder

Have you noticed that it is a lot harder to get certain things these days? Just recently, someone in my local area was surprised when her appointment to get the windshield on her vehicle fixed was canceled because it wasn’t possible to get a replacement windshield. This was a windshield for a very common vehicle, and normally that wouldn’t be a problem at all. But these are not normal times. Thanks to several factors that I will detail in this article, global supply chains are now under more strain than we have ever seen in the post-World War II era, and unfortunately it appears that things are going to get even worse as we approach the holiday season.

I know that most of you probably don’t want to hear that the shortages that we are experiencing now are going to get worse.

So you may be tempted to stop reading this article now because you don’t want to see the bad news.

But it is imperative that you understand what is ahead, and so I urge you to keep reading.

Let’s take this one step at a time. Right now, local news outlets all over the country are doing stories about the shortages in their local areas. Here is one example…

Have you recently gone to the grocery store and found some of the shelves empty? If so, you aren’t alone.

Many people can’t find some of their favorite and essential items since the pandemic started.

As that article points out, the stores are trying to order the products that they need.

They just can’t get them.

This is happening all across the United States, and as a result the inventory to sales ratio for U.S. retailers has been pushed to the lowest level on record…

In April, May, and June, the inventory-sales ratio of around 1.08 – or about 33 days’ supply – was at the lowest point in the data going back to 1992. In the years before the pandemic, the overall ratio was around 1.5, providing 45 days of supply.

So why is this happening?

Well, the truth is that there are several contributing factors, and one of them is fear of COVID.

When a single worker recently tested positive for COVID, China shut down one of the busiest port terminals in the entire world “indefinitely”…

One of the world’s busiest ports partially closed this week after an employee tested positive for Covid-19. The closure raises fears of new disruptions to world trade that could slow the global economy’s recovery.

Meishan, a key terminal at China’s Ningbo-Zhoushan port, closed indefinitely Wednesday after a 34-year old worker tested positive for Covid-19. A member of the board of the Ningbo Port Group Company—which operates the port—also resigned Wednesday, citing personal reasons, reported China’s Securities Daily.

This wouldn’t be such a problem if we had not become so dependent on goods from China.

Other nations are severely overreacting to outbreaks of COVID as well, and this is making it harder and harder to move goods around the world on an efficient basis.

Another major factor that we are dealing with is a historic global shipping container shortage.

The demand for shipping containers greatly exceeds the supply, and this has pushed global shipping container rates to levels we have never seen before.

And once shipping containers are delivered to U.S. ports, there isn’t enough port workers to unload them all.

It can now literally take months for products that are made in China to get to the U.S. retailers that originally ordered them.

Of course if those products contain computer chips, they may never arrive at all.

The global shortage of computer chips is deeply affecting thousands of other industries. For instance, it is being estimated that the global auto industry will produce 7.1 million fewer vehicles this year because of the chip shortage…

VW’s main plant in Wolfsburg is only going to be running on its early shift after summer break due to the lack of supply, Bloomberg reported this morning.

Its plant in Wolfsburg is the “world’s biggest car plant” and employs about 60,000 people. Audi is also pausing production temporarily, extending its summer break by one week, the report notes.

Global shortages of semiconductors could wind up cutting worldwide production of autos this year by about 7.1 million vehicles, Bloomberg predicted this morning.

Now we are moving into the holiday season, and many in the retail industry are anticipating a complete and utter disaster…

Reuters surveyed nearly a dozen suppliers and retailers of everything from toys to computer equipment in the United States and Europe. All expect weeks-long delays in holiday inventory due to shipping bottlenecks, including a global container shortage and the recent COVID-related closure of the southern Chinese port of Yantian, which serves manufacturers near Shenzhen.

One executive that was interviewed by Reuters said that we are heading for “a major, major mess”…

“It’s going to be a major, major mess,” said Isaac Larian, chief executive of Los Angeles-based MGA Entertainment Inc, which sells LOL Surprise, Bratz, Little Tikes and other toy brands to Amazon, Walmart and Target.

And another executive openly admitted that it is “too late” to save Christmas…

“It’s too late for Christmas,” said Thompson, founder of Washington-based Plugable Technologies.

This is what the immediate future of the U.S. economy looks like even if nothing else goes wrong.

So what is going to happen if another major crisis suddenly erupts in the middle of all this?

As inventories get tighter and tighter, prices are rising to compensate. One area that I am particularly interested in is the price of food. According to the FAO, the global price of food is 31 percent higher than it was a year ago…

Whether at supermarkets, corner stores, or open-air markets, prices for food have been surging in much of the world, forcing families to make tough decisions about their diets. Meat is often the first to go, ceding space to less expensive proteins such as dairy, eggs, or beans. In some households, a glass of milk has become a luxury reserved only for children; fresh fruit, once deemed a necessity, is now a treat.

Food prices in July were up 31% from the same month last year, according to an index compiled by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.

Have global paychecks risen 31 percent over the past year to keep up?

No way.

As a result, many are having a much harder time buying the food that they need and more people are going hungry. Needless to say, this is setting the stage for the sort of global crisis that I have been warning about.

There was so much optimism during the first half of 2021, but now everyone is starting to realize which way all the needles are pointing.

Very choppy seas are ahead, and those at the helm do not seem to know what they are doing.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written five others that are available on Amazon.com including “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

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