Middle Class Lifestyle

19 Signs That American Families Are Being Economically Destroyed

19 - Public DomainThe systematic destruction of the American way of life is happening all around us, and yet most people have no idea what is happening.  Once upon a time in America, if you were responsible and hard working you could get a good paying job that could support a middle class lifestyle for an entire family even if you only had a high school education.  Things weren’t perfect, but generally almost everyone in the entire country was able to take care of themselves without government assistance.  We worked hard, we played hard, and our seemingly boundless prosperity was the envy of the entire planet.  But over the past several decades things have completely changed.  We consumed far more wealth than we produced, we shipped millions of good paying jobs overseas, we piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and we kept electing politicians that had absolutely no concern for the long-term future of this nation whatsoever.  So now good jobs are in very short supply, we are drowning in an ocean of red ink, the middle class is rapidly shrinking and dependence on the government is at an all-time high.  Even as we stand at the precipice of the next great economic crisis, we continue to make the same mistakes.  In the end, all of us are going to pay a very great price for decades of incredibly foolish decisions.  Of course a tremendous amount of damage has already been done.  The numbers that I am about to share with you are staggering.  The following are 19 signs that American families are being economically destroyed…

#1 The poorest 40 percent of all Americans now spend more than 50 percent of their incomes just on food and housing.

#2 For those Americans that don’t own a home, 50 percent of them spend more than a third of their incomes just on rent.

#3 The price of school lunches has risen to the 3 dollar mark at many public schools across the nation.

#4 McDonald’s “Dollar Menu & More” now includes items that cost as much as 5 dollars.

#5 The price of ground beef has doubled since 2009.

#6 In 1986, child care expenses for families with employed mothers used up 6.3 percent of all income.  Today, that figure is up to 7.2 percent.

#7 Incomes fell for the bottom 80 percent of all income earners in the United States during the 12 months leading up to June 2014.

#8 At this point, more than 50 percent of all American workers bring home less than $30,000 a year in wages.

#9 After adjusting for inflation, median household income has fallen by nearly $5,000 since 2007.

#10 According to the New York Times, the “typical American household” is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.

#11 47 percent of all Americans do not put a single penny out of their paychecks into savings.

#12 One survey found that 62 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck.

#13 According to the U.S. Department of Education, 33 percent of all Americans with student loans are currently behind on their student loan debt repayments.

#14 According to one recent report, 43 million Americans currently have unpaid medical debt on their credit reports.

#15 The rate of homeownership in the U.S. has been declining for seven years in a row, and it is now the lowest that it has been in 20 years.

#16 For each of the past six years, more businesses have closed in the United States than have opened.  Prior to 2008, this had never happened before in all of U.S. history.

#17 According to the Census Bureau, 65 percent of all children in the United States are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.

#18 If you have no debt at all, and you also have 10 dollars in your wallet, that you are wealthier than 25 percent of all Americans.

#19 On top of everything else, the average American must work from January 1st to April 24th just to pay all federal, state and local taxes.

All of us know people that once were doing quite well but that are now just struggling to get by from month to month.

Perhaps this has happened to you.

If you have ever been in that position, you probably remember what it feels like to have people look down on you.  Unfortunately, in our society the value that we place on individuals has a tremendous amount to do with how much money they have.

So if you don’t have much money, there are a lot of people out there that will treat you like dirt.  The following excerpt comes from a Washington Post article entitled “The poor are treated like criminals everywhere, even at the grocery store“…

Want to see a look of pure hatred? Pull out an EBT card at the grocery store.

Now that my kids are grown and gone, my Social Security check is enough to keep me from qualifying for government food benefits. But I remember well when we did qualify for a monthly EBT deposit, a whopping $22 — and that was before Congress cut SNAP benefits in November 2013. Like 70 percent of people receiving SNAP benefits, I couldn’t feed my family on that amount. But I remember the comments from middle-class people, the assumptions about me and my disability and what the poor should and shouldn’t be spending money on.

Have you ever seen this?

Have you ever experienced this yourself?

These days, most people on food stamps are not in that situation because they want to be.  Rather, they are victims of our long-term economic collapse.

And this is just the beginning.  When the next major economic crisis strikes, the suffering in this country is going to go to unprecedented levels.

As we enter that time, we are going to need a whole lot more love and compassion than we are exhibiting right now.

As a nation, we have made decades of incredibly bad decisions.  As a result, we are experiencing bad consequences which are going to become increasingly more severe.

The numbers that I just shared with you are not good.  But over the next several years they are going to get a whole lot worse.

Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, and life in America is about to change in a major way.

 

Economic Failure: 58 Percent Of The Jobs Being Created Are Low Paying Jobs

Are you good at flipping burgers , waiting tables or stocking shelves?  Are you proficient with a cash register?  Do you enjoy doing mindless work for very low pay?  If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you are probably going to fit in very well in the new U.S. economy.  According to a report that has just been released by the National Employment Law Project, 58 percent of the jobs that have been created since the end of the recession have been low paying jobs.  So exactly what is a low paying job?  Well, the National Employment Law Project defines it as a job with an hourly wage between $7.69 and $13.83.  But of course you can’t pay a mortgage or support a family on $13.83 an hour.  Even if you got full-time hours the entire year, you would make less than $28,000 on an annual basis.  The federal poverty level for a family of five is $27,010.  So needless to say, most of these new jobs are not paying enough to support a middle class lifestyle.  This represents an economic failure on a fundamental level.  Our economy is producing very few good jobs that enable people to be able to raise families and live the American Dream.  The ranks of “the working poor” are exploding and the number of Americans that are dependent on the government is sitting at an all-time record.  Sadly, if current trends continue things are going to get a lot worse.

The numbers compiled by the National Employment Law Project are absolutely stunning.  Most of the jobs lost during the recent recession were mid-wage jobs, and most of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.  This represents a fundamental shift in our economy.  Just check out these figures….

–21 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were low wage jobs paying between $7.69 and $13.83 an hour.

–58 percent of the jobs created since the end of the recession have been low wage jobs paying between $7.69 and $13.83 an hour.

–60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs paying between $13.84 and $21.13 an hour.

–22 percent of the jobs created since the end of the recession have been mid-wage jobs paying between $13.84 and $21.13 an hour.

But even the high end of the mid-wage pay scale is not that great.

If you make $21.13 an hour and you work full-time hours for the entire year you will end up making about 42,000 for an entire year.

Yes, that can probably support a family of four in most areas of the country, but you really have to scrimp and save to do it.

And keep in mind that 80 percent of all the jobs being created now pay at that level or less.

Welcome to the new U.S. economy.

It really stinks for workers.

The truth is that there has been a fundamental cultural change in our economy. Workers are no longer valued.  They are viewed as expensive liabilities that should be disposed of as rapidly as possible once their usefulness has ended.

There is very little loyalty to workers these days, and most big corporations do not really care about the quality of the lives of their workers.  The number of companies offering health insurance to their workers continues to decline (and thanks to Obamacare that decline is accelerating even further), and the number of companies offering pension plans to their workers continues to decrease as well.

At this point, less than 25 percent of all jobs in the United States are good jobs, and that number continues to shrink.

Is this because the big corporations are not making enough money?

Not at all.

In fact, corporate profits have been setting all-time records in recent years….

Meanwhile, wages as a percentage of the economy are at an all-time low….

So why is this happening?

Well, I already talked about the fundamental cultural shift that is happening.  Companies simply do not care about their workers like they used to.  America is becoming a very cold place.

Another major factor is that millions upon millions of our good jobs have been shipped overseas thanks to the emerging one world economy.

In the old days, U.S. corporations were more or less forced to hire American workers and the wages earned from a typical manufacturing job could easily support a growing family.

That has entirely changed now.

The big corporations no longer need American workers to make stuff.  They can just close up shop and move their facilities to the other side of the globe where it is legal to pay slave labor wages to very desperate workers.

And now there is greatly increased competition for the jobs that we still have in this country because so many of our jobs have disappeared.

If you don’t like how your employer is treating you that is just too bad.  In most cases your employer would have absolutely no problem finding a replacement for you.  In fact, there are probably thousands of people in your community that are desperate for a job such as yours.

So what does all of this mean?

It means that the decline of the middle class in America is going to get a lot worse.

American families are rapidly getting poorer.  Real median household income has fallen another 4.8 percent since the last recession ended.

Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to go up and American family budgets are being stretched to the limit.

In a previous article, I noted that 62 percent of all middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.

Things have fundamentally changed.  The days of endless prosperity for the middle class are gone for good.  You are going to have to adjust.

At this point, 77 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time.

If you are relying solely on a job for the financial survival of your family, then you are probably in a similar situation.

Do you know why they call it a “job”?

It is because you will mostly likely end up living “Just Over Broke” for most of your life.

A major shift in our economy is happening.

We are transitioning from an “employment economy” to an “ownership economy”.

Most Americans that are currently working for others are not going to have a bright economic future.

That may sound harsh, but it is the truth.

Even if you are still one of the fortunate Americans that still has a good job, you need to start thinking about what you are going to do when you lose that job someday.

The system is failing, and if you have blind faith that it is always going to take care of you and provide a job for you then you are likely to be bitterly disappointed someday.