WE AMERICANS ARE FINE, FREAKY FINE, SWINDLED.
50% OF AMERICAN WORKERS MAKE LESS
THAN $28,031 A YEAR
Submitted by Tyler Durden on
10/24/2014
The Social Security Administration has just released wage
statistics for 2013, and the numbers are startling. Last year, 50
percent of all American workers made less than $28,031, and 39 percent of
all American workers made less than $20,000. If you worked a full-time
job at $10 an hour all year long with two weeks off, you would make
$20,000. So the fact that 39 percent of all workers made less than that
amount is rather telling. This is more evidence of the declining
quality of the jobs in this country. In many homes in America today,
both parents are working multiple jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet.
Our paychecks are stagnant while the cost of living just continues to soar. And the jobs
that are being added to the economy pay a lot less than the jobs lost in the
last recession. In fact, it has been estimated that the jobs that have
been created since the last recession pay an average of 23 percent less than
the jobs that were lost. We are witnessing the slow-motion destruction
of the middle class, and very few of our leaders seem to care.
The "average" yearly wage in America last year was
just $43,041. But after accounting for inflation, that was actually
worse than the year before...
American paychecks shrank last
year, just-released data show, further eroding the public’s purchasing power,
which is so vital to economic growth.
Average pay for 2013 was $43,041 —
down $79 from the previous year when measured in 2013 dollars. Worse, average
pay fell $508 below the 2007 level, my analysis of the new Social Security
Administration data shows.
Flat or declining average pay is a
major reason so many Americans feel that the Great Recession never ended for
them. A severe job shortage compounds that misery not just for workers but also
for businesses trying to profit from selling goods and services.
Average pay declined in 59 of the
60 levels of worker pay the government reports each October.
And please keep in mind that "average pay" is
really skewed by the millionaires and billionaires at the top end of the
spectrum.
Median pay in 2013 was just $28,031.02. That means
that 50 percent of American workers made less than that number, and 50 percent
of American workers made more than that number.
Here are some more numbers from the report that the Social Security Administration just
released...
-39 percent of American workers
made less than $20,000 last year.
-52 percent of American workers
made less than $30,000 last year.
-63 percent of American workers
made less than $40,000 last year.
-72 percent of American workers
made less than $50,000 last year.
I don't know about you, but those numbers are deeply
troubling to me.
It has been estimated that it takes approximately $50,000 a
year to support a middle class lifestyle for a family of four, and so the fact
that 72 percent of all workers make less than that amount shows how difficult
it is for families that try to get by with just a single breadwinner.
The way that our economy is structured now, both parents
usually have to work as hard as they can just to pay the bills.
But there was one group of Americans that did see their
incomes actually increase last year.
Those making over 50 million dollars had their pay increase
by an average of $12.8 million in 2013.
For everyone else, the news was not good.
And of course this is a trend that has been going on for a
long time.
Posted below is a chart that comes from the Federal
Reserve. It shows how real median household income in the United
States has declined since the year 2000...
SEE CHART URL: http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2014/10-overflow/20141024_income_0.jpg
Meanwhile, the cost of living has continued to rise at a
steady pace.
Needless to say, this is putting a tremendous squeeze on the middle class. With each passing day,
more Americans are losing their spots in the middle class and this has pushed
government dependence to an all-time high. According to the U.S. Census
Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans now live in a home that receives money from
the government each month. This is completely and totally unsustainable,
but our long-term economic problems just keep getting worse.
Our politicians have stood by as millions upon millions
of good paying jobs have been shipped out of the country. Millions of
other middle class jobs have been lost to technology. This has resulted
in intense competition for the middle class jobs that remain.
And at this point we are even losing lots of lower paying
retail jobs. For example, it is being reported that Sears plans to
close 110 more stores and lay off more than 6,000 workers. Sears says
that the report "isn't accurate", but it isn't denying that stores will be
closed either...
In an email to USA Today, Sears
spokesman Howard Riefs said the store count and closures "isn't
accurate,'' but did not provide store closures or layoff numbers.
"As we stated in our (second
quarter earnings report), we disclosed that we would be closing unprofitable
stores as leases expire and in some cases will accelerate closings when it is
economically prudent. And that we would consider closing additional stores
during the remainder of the year,'' Riefs said. "Make no mistake, we
believe the store will continue to play an integral role in our transformation,
however, if a store is not generating a profit, it is straightforward that the
store should be considered for closure."
No matter how many stores Sears does end up closing over the
next few months, the truth is that our economy is a complete and total mess at this point.
Our politicians and the mainstream media are trying to
put a happy face on everything, but the cold, hard numbers prove that we are not
anywhere close to where we were prior to the last recession.
Because it is so difficult to find a good job in America
today, I often recommend to people that they should consider starting their own
businesses.
But thanks to the bureaucratic control freaks in the Obama
administration and in our state governments, small business ownership in
America today is at an all-time low. It is almost as
if they don't want the "little guy" to win. Every avenue of
prosperity for the middle class is under assault, and there does not appear to
be much hope that this will change any time soon.
And the truly frightening thing is that this is about as
good as things are going to get for the middle class. We are rapidly
approaching the next major wave of our long-term economic decline, but that
is a topic for a future article.
---------
RELATED ARTICLES:
12 Charts That Show The Permanent Damage That
Has Been Done To The US Economy Posted on October 15, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog By Michael
Snyder. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/10/12-charts-show-permanent-damage-done-us-economy.html
19
Surprising Facts About The Messed Up State Of The US Economy Submitted by Tyler
Durden on 10/21/2014
======
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario