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Is It Fair For People On Food Stamps To Buy Prime Rib And Lobster While Working Families Barely Survive?
Should we all quit working and jump on board the Obama gravy train? Of course I am being facetious, but when you are barely surviving does there come a point when it just becomes easier to give up and totally rely on the government? Today, the federal government runs nearly 80 different means-tested welfare programs, and many state and local governments have their own welfare programs on top of that. If you become an expert on those programs and you learn how to game the system, can you live more comfortably than someone that lives honestly and works as hard as they can and yet still makes less than 10 dollars an hour? Now, right from the outset of this article, let me make it abundantly clear that I do not believe that most people are abusing the system. As I have written about over and over, the number of Americans living in poverty is rapidly increasing because there are not enough jobs. There are not enough jobs because we are shipping millions of them out of the country to the other side of the globe, and we are also losing millions of jobs to technology. There have always been those that need our help, and because of the foolish decisions that we have made as a nation, the ranks of the poor will continue to expand. But it is also true that there are some people out there that are very brazenly abusing the system. For example, is it really fair for people on food stamps to buy prime rib and lobster while many working families barely survive? People like that are taking advantage of their fellow Americans, and they are making it harder for the people that really need the help to be able to get it.
Unfortunately, we are rapidly becoming an “entitlement society”. Close to half the country lives in a home that receives some sort of monetary benefits from the federal government each month at this point.
In particular, the food stamp program has experienced explosive growth in recent years. Since Obama has been president, the number of Americans on food stamps has grown by more than 49 percent, and more than 11,000 people a day have enrolled in the food stamp program since Obama entered the White House.
And if you can believe it, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain.
Will we all eventually be on food stamps?
Actually, the truth is that there are millions upon millions of hard working American families that are desperately trying to make it on their own and that don’t want to become financial dependents of the federal government. Unfortunately, it can be a little disheartening when you are barely making it from month to month and yet you see others using government benefit cards to buy luxury items.
The other day my wife came across a discussion on Facebook that really caught her attention. I thought that I would share with you all the post that got that discussion going. As far as I can determine, this woman shared what she believed she actually saw at her local grocery store, but I have no way of determining if this story is true or not. But I have seen quite a few similar stories of food stamp abuse in the past. Either way, I think the following story will be good to help spark a conversation about whether our current system is broken or not. All of the names have been removed so as to protect the identity of the woman that originally posted this on Facebook…
Okay…so, I’m going to go on a rant for a minute…just to get it off my chest…
**** & I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things because we were getting low…sooo, we pick up our 40% off chicken and buy one get two free items and proceed to checkout.
There is a woman ahead of us with a child about 4 years old. The woman, I couldn’t help but notice….had beautiful fingernails, clearly professionally done…and I also noticed her brand new IPHONE…which she was talking on, and I think that is rude while you are being checked out. Her little girl was commenting on the TWO live lobsters in a bag on the checkout, asked if it was going to hurt when they get cooked, her mom brushed her off…at that time I took a look at what else she had on the counter…A HUGE roast, sirloin tips, shrimp, beef ribs and pork ribs…only the prime cuts… I thought to myself….mmmmmm someone is having a yummy dinner and must have a great job as I could not afford these things (not that I’d get my nails done anyway)….
So…the cashier gives her a total and what does she pull out of her wallet but a BENEFIT card!!!!!!! I had all I could do to contain myself…
Sometimes people need help, and I’m okay with that, and those who need it should get it….BUT…if you can afford the latest IPHONE and fancy nails then why in the world are the taxpayers paying for your LOBSTER?!!!! If she really needed help and food, she should have been buying the “sale” items…40% off chicken, buy one get one free cheese ravioli…you know, like the rest of us working class have to buy!
It especially makes me mad because there ARE PEOPLE WHO NEED HELP and can’t get it…My son and his girlfriend and brand new baby aren’t eligible for an ounce of help…they tried, she works days and he works nights so that they don’t have to pay for day-care, they use inexpensive diapers and try to save money anyway they can, they struggle to make ends meet and to pay for their straight talk phones and to boot are paying off college loans…but they supposedly make too much…c’mon, really, he works at McDonalds and she works in a nursing home…lets be real here…those are the type that SHOULD get help…UGHHHH Our system is broken and something needs to be done about it!!!
There, that’s my rant…kudo’s to you if you managed to read the whole thing as I know it was an awful long rant….Gotta go work now,
Thanks for listening.
In response to her story, dozens of people posted comments. Quite a few people said that they had seen similar things where they lived.
And the truth is that food stamps are accepted just about wherever you look these days. Just check out this shocking article: “Obama’s food-stamp nation: ‘We accept EBT’ signs are everywhere“.
So is this kind of thing fair?
If not, what can be done about it?
What everybody can agree upon is that the number of food stamp recipients is absolutely exploding. The following is from a recent CNS news article…
When Obama entered office in January 2009 there were 31,939,110 Americans receiving food stamps. As of November 2012—the most recent data available—there were 47,692,896 Americans enrolled, an increase of 49.3 percent.
But this didn’t just start under Obama. Back in the year 2000, there were just 17 million Americans on food stamps.
30 million more have been added to the program since then.
And of course food stamps is not the only federal welfare program that is being abused.
According to the Wall Street Journal, there has been a tremendous amount of abuse in the free cell phone program as well.
The U.S. government spent about $2.2 billion last year to provide phones to low-income Americans, but a Wall Street Journal review of the program shows that a large number of those who received the phones haven’t proved they are eligible to receive them.
The Lifeline program—begun in 1984 to ensure that poor people aren’t cut off from jobs, families and emergency services—is funded by charges that appear on the monthly bills of every landline and wireless-phone customer. Payouts under the program have shot up from $819 million in 2008, as more wireless carriers have persuaded regulators to let them offer the service.
A lot of people refer to those free cell phones as “Obamaphones”, but the truth is that the program has been going on for a long time. It just has accelerated greatly under Obama.
So what is the solution to all of this?
Well, what we really need are a lot more jobs, but in the State of the Union address last night Obama simply rehashed a lot of the same tired proposals that he and our former presidents have been promoting for years.
If we continue to do the same things that we have been doing, we are going to continue to get the same results.
There is a reason why the percentage of the civilian labor force in the United States that is employed has been steadily declining every single year since 2006. We keep pursuing foolish policies, and those policies are steadily destroying our economy.
Sadly, many of our politicians appear to be engaged in some form of “doublethink”. The things that they tell us will solve our problems are actually the things that are making our problems even worse.
For example, Barack Obama says that we need even more “free trade agreements” and that we need to integrate our economy into the emerging one world economic system even more deeply.
But as I have shown in article after article, the “free trade” agenda of the global elite has resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of U.S. businesses and millions of good paying U.S. jobs.
For much more on this, please see the following article: “55 Reasons Why You Should Buy Products That Are Made In America“.
And of course Obama once promised that he would never “rest” until he had fixed our employment problems, but that hasn’t exactly been the truth either. The following is from a recent article by Dan Gainor…
Back in 2009, the president promised never to “rest” until the job situation was fixed. Nearly four years later, he’s done a lot of resting.
According to The Weekly Standard, Pres. Obama has had 83 vacation days overall and Factcheck.org says he took 26 of those in 2009. That means the president has taken at least 57 vacation days since his vow not to “rest.”
But hey, he needs his rest. Life is rough. U.S. taxpayers only spend about a billion dollars a year on the Obamas. How is he supposed to scrape by on such limited resources?
Meanwhile, Americans are still incredibly pessimistic about the economy. The following is what one recent survey found…
- Eight in 10 Americans are skeptical that career and employment opportunities will be better for the next generation.
- More than half of Americans say the economy will not fully recover from the 2007-2009 recession for another six years; 29% believe the economy will never fully recover.
- 73% of Americans were directly impacted by the recession: individuals surveyed had either lost a job themselves or a family member/close relative had been out work because of the economic downturn.
- The majority of survey participants said college would become unaffordable for most young Americans.
- 56% reported having fewer savings than before the recession.
- More than half of those who were laid off or lost a job said they cut back on medical treatment or doctor visits.
- 40% of Americans have borrowed money from family or friends.
- Nearly 25% of participants said they have sought professional help for stress or depression.
And as you can see from the charts in this article, U.S. businesses remain very pessimistic about the future of the economy as well.
Unfortunately, those that are pessimistic about the economy have very good reasons to be so.
And as bad as things are right now, they are going to be getting much, much worse.
That means that millions more Americans are going to be wanting to sign up for food stamps and other welfare programs.
But what will happen someday when the safety net breaks and all of those welfare programs start getting cut back dramatically?
What kind of riots will we see in major U.S. cities when the international community insists that the U.S. implement its own version of “austerity” in response to a massive debt crisis?
Will we eventually end up just like Greece and Spain or even worse?
Please share this article with as many people as you can, and please feel free to leave your thoughts on this article above by posting a comment below…
View full post on The Economic Collapse
37 Facts That Show How Cruel This Economy Has Been To Millions Of Desperate American Families
Have you ever laid in bed awake at night with a knot in your stomach because you didn’t know how your family was possibly going to make it through the next month financially? Have you ever felt the desperation of not being able to provide the basic necessities for your family even though you tried as hard as you could? All over America tonight, there are millions of desperate families that are being ripped apart by this economy. There aren’t nearly enough jobs, and millions of Americans that actually do have jobs aren’t making enough to even provide the basics for their families. When you have tried everything that you can think of and nothing works, it can be absolutely soul crushing. Today, one of my regular readers explained that he was not going to be online for a while because his power had been turned off. He has been out of work for quite a while, and eventually the money runs out. Have you ever been there? If you have ever experienced that moment, you know that it stays with you for the rest of your life. If you are single that is bad enough, but when you have to look into the eyes of your children and explain to them why there won’t be any dinner tonight or why they have to move into a homeless shelter it can feel like someone has driven a stake into your heart. In this article you will find a lot of very shocking economic statistics. But please remember that behind each statistic are the tragic stories of millions of desperately hurting American families.
Over the past decade, things have steadily gotten worse for American families no matter what our politicians have tried. Poverty and government dependence continue to rise. The cost of living continues to go up and incomes continue to go down. It is truly frightening to think about what this country is going to look like if current trends continue.
The following are 37 facts that show how cruel this economy has been to millions of desperate American families…
1. One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.
2. A different recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.
3. In the United States today, there are close to 10 million households that do not have a single bank account. That number has increased by about a million since 2009.
4. Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.
5. The number of Americans living in poverty has increased by about 6 million over the past four years.
6. Median household income has fallen for four years in a row. Overall, it has declined by more than $4000 over the past four years.
7. 62 percent of middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.
8. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 85 percent of middle class Americans say that it is more difficult to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.
9. In the United States today, 77 percent of all Americans are living to paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time.
10. In the United States today, more than 41 percent of all working age Americans are not working.
11. Since January 2009, the “labor force” in the United States has increased by 827,000, but “those not in the labor force” has increased by 8,208,000. This is how they have gotten the unemployment numbers to “come down”.
12. Sadly, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
13. Today, about one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the federal poverty level.
14. Right now, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
15. At this point, less than 25 percent of all jobs in the United States are “good jobs”, and that number continues to shrink.
16. There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.
17. According to USA Today, many Americans have actually seen their water bills triple over the past 12 years.
18. Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
19. In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.
20. Health insurance premiums rose faster than the overall rate of inflation in 2011 and that is happening once again in 2012. In fact, it has been happening for a very long time.
21. According to one recent survey, approximately 10 percent of all employers in the United States plan to drop health coverage when key provisions of the new health care law kick in less than two years from now.
22. Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned. By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.
23. Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
24. Total consumer debt in the United States has risen by 1700 percent since 1971.
25. Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.
26. According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time at this point.
27. Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living at home with their parents.
28. The percentage of Americans that find that they are able to retire when they reach retirement age continues to decline. According to one new survey, 70 percent of middle class Americans plan to work during retirement and 30 percent plan to work until they are at least 80 years old.
29. The U.S. economy lost more than 220,000 small businesses during the recent recession.
30. In 2010, the number of jobs created at new businesses in the United States was less than half of what it was back in the year 2000.
31. Back in 2007, 19.2 percent of all American families had a net worth of zero or less than zero. By 2010, that figure had soared to 32.5 percent.
32. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.
33. In the United States today, somewhere around 100 million Americans are considered to be either “poor” or “near poor”.
34. In October 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, 46.7 million Americans are on food stamps.
35. Approximately one-fourth of all children in the United States are enrolled in the food stamp program.
36. Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare.
37. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government. Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.
What makes all of this even more frightening is that many homeless shelters and food banks around the nation are so overloaded at this point that they are already over capacity. Just consider this example…
When Janice Coe, a homeless advocate in Loudoun County, learned through her prayer group that a young woman was sleeping in the New Carrollton Metro station with a toddler and a 2-month-old, she sprang into action.
Coe contacted the young woman and arranged for her to take the train to Virginia, where she put the little family up in a Comfort Suites hotel. Then Coe began calling shelters to see who could take them.
Despite several phone calls, she came up empty. Coe was shocked to learn that many of the local shelters that cater to families were full, including Good Shepherd Alliance, where Coe was once director of social services.
“I don’t know why nobody will take this girl in,” Coe said. “The baby still had a hospital bracelet on her wrist.”
Keep in mind that Loudoun Country is smack dab in the middle of one of the wealthiest areas of Virginia.
So if things are that bad in the wealthy areas, exactly how bad are things getting in many of the poorer areas?
Unfortunately, things continue to get worse for this economy. DuPont has just announced plans to eliminate 1,500 jobs. There are more major layoff announcements almost every single day. So how bad will things get when our crumbling economic system finally collapses? When kind of chaos will be unleashed all over the nation when millions upon millions of Americans finally lose all hope?
In the introduction to this article, I mentioned that one of my regular readers has had his lights turned off. The following is how he described his situation…
No gas, no water, no electricity at my house. Couldn’t pay the bills. I’m broke. Desperately searching for any means of income, or at least enough cash to get the juice (electricity) restored.
Typing this missive in a dark house using the battery on my laptop. Feels like I’m camping out at home. Hope to get this situation fixed tomorrow… somehow. Needless to say, I *…. hate this.
I was ready for this, but it is still a major league inconvenience. For those of you who DO have power, etc. – and are not ready… oh brother. You need to get ready. Seriously, you do. Because what I’m going through is just an inconvenience. It may someday be a normal occurence. Ugh. (expletives deleted)
Hopefully a way can be found to get his situation turned around, but the truth is that there are tens of millions of other similar stories out there in America today.
What about you? What are things like in your neck of the woods? Please feel free to share your thoughts below…
View full post on The Economic Collapse
American • American Families ARE Getting Poorer
It Is Not Just Your Imagination – American Families ARE Getting Poorer
Did you know that median household income in the United States is lower today than it was when the last recession supposedly ended? If we are in the middle of an "economic recovery", how can this possibly be happening? Stunning new statistics compiled by Sentier Research show that the U.S. economy is not nearly as healthy as we have been led to believe. According to the study that Sentier Research has just released, median household income in the United States was sitting at $55,470 back in January 2000. In December 2007, when the recession began, it was sitting at $54,916. In June 2009, when the recession supposedly ended, it was sitting at $53,508. Today, it is sitting at $50,964. This is a long-term trend that is definitely going in the wrong direction. The fact that median household income in the U.S. is now 4.8 percent lower than it was when the last recession ended is incredibly disturbing, especially since all of the things that we buy on a regular basis just keep going up in price. Food, gas, electricity, car insurance and health insurance all cost a whole lot more today than they did back in the year 2000, and yet median household income has dropped 8.1 percent since that time. So what does all of this mean? It means that American families ARE getting poorer.
Yes, the stock market has been soaring, corporate profits have set all-time records in recent years and the big Wall Street banks that were showered with bailout money are absolutely thriving.
But there has been no economic recovery on "Main Street".
According to the Sentier Research report mentioned above, incomes have been declining in all geographic regions of the country and in all sectors of the economy….
-Median household income for the self-employed has fallen 9.4 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for private sector employees has fallen 4.5 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for government workers has fallen 3.5 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for Americans living in the West has fallen 8.5 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for Americans living in the Northeast has fallen 4.9 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for Americans living in the South has also fallen 4.9 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for Americans living in the Midwest has fallen 1.1 percent since June 2009.
Remember, the recession supposedly ended in June 2009.
Since that time we have supposedly been in a "recovery".
So if it has seemed to you that American families have been getting poorer it has not just been your imagination.
In a previous article, I detailed 84 statistics that prove that the middle class in America is being systematically destroyed. If you have not read it yet, I encourage you to go check it out. At this point it is absolutely undeniable that the middle class in America is declining. The following are just a couple of the numbers from my recent article….
1. According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of all Americans were "middle income" back in 1971. Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are.
2. The Pew Research Center has also found that 85 percent of middle class Americans say that it is harder to maintain a middle class standard of living today compared with 10 years ago.
3. 62 percent of middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.
4. The average net worth of a middle class family in America was $129,582 in 2001. By 2010 that figure had dropped to $93,150.
5. According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of all families in the United States declined "from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010".
You can find 79 more statistics just like this right here.
At the same time that our incomes are going down, the cost of living just continues to rise steadily.
Thanks Ben Bernanke.
American families are being increasingly stretched financially, and if major changes are not made this is going to get even worse in the years ahead.
Another thing that we aren’t being told on the nightly news is that the percentage of working age Americans that have jobs is lower today than when the last recession ended.
So let’s summarize….
-A smaller percentage of Americans have jobs today compared to June 2009.
-Median household income has declined by 4.8 percent since June 2009.
-American families are far less wealthy than they were just a few years ago.
Are we sure that we are in an economic recovery?
Just look at what is happening to our cities.
The rest of the world once looked at Detroit in awe.
Now it is a global joke.
You can see some incredible photographs of the devastation in Detroit right here.
This kind of thing is happening on the east coast as well. I have written many times about how horrible life has become in places such as Camden, New Jersey.
Well, now the entire Camden police force is being disbanded, and the policing of the city is going to be turned over to the county.
We are a mess, and it is time to admit that.
Sadly, most Americans simply have no idea how close our economic system really is to total system failure.
Only 24.6 percent of the jobs in this country are "good jobs" at this point, the velocity of money in our economy has plunged to a post-World War II low, unemployment is rampant, more than half of all Americans are at least partially financially dependent on the government and our national debt is crossing the 16 trillion dollar mark.
We don’t need someone to come in and "tweak" the economy.
We need radical reconstructive surgery.
But most Americans do not understand this.
Most Americans do not seem to grasp these things until economic hardship touches them personally.
After all, if you still have a good job and the mainstream media is telling you that everything is going to be okay it is really easy to pretend that we aren’t heading for an economic disaster of unimaginable proportions.
A massive problem that we are facing right now is something known as "normalcy bias". This is how Wikipedia defines "normalcy bias"….
The normalcy bias, or normality bias, refers to a mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.
Doesn’t that sound exactly like the vast majority of Americans right now?
Most Americans just assume that since we have always recovered from every other economic downturn in the past that we will always be able to easily handle whatever the future throws at us.
If only that was true.
We are heading into a time that will be unlike anything any of us have ever experienced before, and many people that have blind faith in the system are going to be absolutely devastated when this coming crisis blindsides them.
Our economy has been collapsing, it is continuing to collapse, and the collapse is going to accelerate dramatically in the coming years.
You can have blind faith in the system, or you can get prepared for what is coming.
The choice is up to you.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch … ing-poorer
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Mon Aug 27, 2012 5:05 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
It Is Not Just Your Imagination – American Families ARE Getting Poorer
Did you know that median household income in the United States is lower today than it was when the last recession supposedly ended? If we are in the middle of an “economic recovery”, how can this possibly be happening? Stunning new statistics compiled by Sentier Research show that the U.S. economy is not nearly as healthy as we have been led to believe. According to the study that Sentier Research has just released, median household income in the United States was sitting at $55,470 back in January 2000. In December 2007, when the recession began, it was sitting at $54,916. In June 2009, when the recession supposedly ended, it was sitting at $53,508. Today, it is sitting at $50,964. This is a long-term trend that is definitely going in the wrong direction. The fact that median household income in the U.S. is now 4.8 percent lower than it was when the last recession ended is incredibly disturbing, especially since all of the things that we buy on a regular basis just keep going up in price. Food, gas, electricity, car insurance and health insurance all cost a whole lot more today than they did back in the year 2000, and yet median household income has dropped 8.1 percent since that time. So what does all of this mean? It means that American families ARE getting poorer.
Yes, the stock market has been soaring, corporate profits have set all-time records in recent years and the big Wall Street banks that were showered with bailout money are absolutely thriving.
But there has been no economic recovery on “Main Street”.
According to the Sentier Research report mentioned above, incomes have been declining in all geographic regions of the country and in all sectors of the economy….
-Median household income for the self-employed has fallen 9.4 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for private sector employees has fallen 4.5 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for government workers has fallen 3.5 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for Americans living in the West has fallen 8.5 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for Americans living in the Northeast has fallen 4.9 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for Americans living in the South has also fallen 4.9 percent since June 2009.
-Median household income for Americans living in the Midwest has fallen 1.1 percent since June 2009.
Remember, the recession supposedly ended in June 2009.
Since that time we have supposedly been in a “recovery”.
So if it has seemed to you that American families have been getting poorer it has not just been your imagination.
In a previous article, I detailed 84 statistics that prove that the middle class in America is being systematically destroyed. If you have not read it yet, I encourage you to go check it out. At this point it is absolutely undeniable that the middle class in America is declining. The following are just a couple of the numbers from my recent article….
1. According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of all Americans were “middle income” back in 1971. Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are.
2. The Pew Research Center has also found that 85 percent of middle class Americans say that it is harder to maintain a middle class standard of living today compared with 10 years ago.
3. 62 percent of middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.
4. The average net worth of a middle class family in America was $129,582 in 2001. By 2010 that figure had dropped to $93,150.
5. According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of all families in the United States declined “from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010“.
You can find 79 more statistics just like this right here.
At the same time that our incomes are going down, the cost of living just continues to rise steadily.
Thanks Ben Bernanke.
American families are being increasingly stretched financially, and if major changes are not made this is going to get even worse in the years ahead.
Another thing that we aren’t being told on the nightly news is that the percentage of working age Americans that have jobs is lower today than when the last recession ended.
So let’s summarize….
-A smaller percentage of Americans have jobs today compared to June 2009.
-Median household income has declined by 4.8 percent since June 2009.
-American families are far less wealthy than they were just a few years ago.
Are we sure that we are in an economic recovery?
Just look at what is happening to our cities.
The rest of the world once looked at Detroit in awe.
Now it is a global joke.
You can see some incredible photographs of the devastation in Detroit right here.
This kind of thing is happening on the east coast as well. I have written many times about how horrible life has become in places such as Camden, New Jersey.
Well, now the entire Camden police force is being disbanded, and the policing of the city is going to be turned over to the county.
We are a mess, and it is time to admit that.
Sadly, most Americans simply have no idea how close our economic system really is to total system failure.
Only 24.6 percent of the jobs in this country are “good jobs” at this point, the velocity of money in our economy has plunged to a post-World War II low, unemployment is rampant, more than half of all Americans are at least partially financially dependent on the government and our national debt is crossing the 16 trillion dollar mark.
We don’t need someone to come in and “tweak” the economy.
We need radical reconstructive surgery.
But most Americans do not understand this.
Most Americans do not seem to grasp these things until economic hardship touches them personally.
After all, if you still have a good job and the mainstream media is telling you that everything is going to be okay it is really easy to pretend that we aren’t heading for an economic disaster of unimaginable proportions.
A massive problem that we are facing right now is something known as “normalcy bias”. This is how Wikipedia defines “normalcy bias”….
The normalcy bias, or normality bias, refers to a mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.
Doesn’t that sound exactly like the vast majority of Americans right now?
Most Americans just assume that since we have always recovered from every other economic downturn in the past that we will always be able to easily handle whatever the future throws at us.
If only that was true.
We are heading into a time that will be unlike anything any of us have ever experienced before, and many people that have blind faith in the system are going to be absolutely devastated when this coming crisis blindsides them.
Our economy has been collapsing, it is continuing to collapse, and the collapse is going to accelerate dramatically in the coming years.
You can have blind faith in the system, or you can get prepared for what is coming.
The choice is up to you.
View full post on The Economic Collapse
Other • 25 Signs That Middle Class Families Have Been Targeted For E
25 Signs That Middle Class Families Have Been Targeted For Extinction
The middle class in America is being systematically wiped out, and most people don’t even realize what is happening. Every single year, millions more Americans fall out of the middle class and become dependent on the government. The United States once had the largest and most vibrant middle class in the history of the world, but now the middle class is rapidly shrinking and government dependence is at an all-time high. So why is this happening? Well, America is becoming a poorer nation at the same time that wealth is becoming extremely concentrated at the very top. At this point, our economic system is designed to funnel as much money and power to the federal government and to the big corporations as possible. Individuals and small businesses have a really hard time thriving in this environment. To most big corporations these days, workers are viewed as financial liabilities. Most corporations want to reduce their payrolls as much as possible. You see, the truth is that most corporations want to be just like Apple. If you can believe it, Apple makes $400,000 in profit per employee. Big corporations don’t care that you need to pay the mortgage and provide for your family. Their goal is to make as much money as possible. And most of the control freaks that run our bloated federal government don’t care much about middle class families either. To many politicians and federal bureaucrats, middle class families are "useless eaters" that are constantly damaging the environment with their "excessive" lifestyles. In this day and age, neither the federal government nor the big corporations really have much use for middle class Americans, and that is really, really bad news for the the future of the middle class family in America.
There are three key factors that are constantly chipping away at the middle class….
-Globalization
-Inflation
-Taxes
Labor has become a global commodity, and American workers are often 10 to 20 times as expensive as workers on the other side of the world are. Middle class jobs (such as manufacturing, etc.) have been leaving this country at an astounding pace. Competition for the jobs that remain has become extremely fierce, and this has driven wages down. The following is from a recent article in the New York Times….
But in the last two decades, something more fundamental has changed, economists say. Midwage jobs started disappearing. Particularly among Americans without college degrees, today’s new jobs are disproportionately in service occupations — at restaurants or call centers, or as hospital attendants or temporary workers — that offer fewer opportunities for reaching the middle class.
As paychecks have stagnated, the cost of living has continued to escalate. Middle class families are finding that their paychecks simply do not go nearly as far as they did before. This is creating a tremendous amount of financial stress in households all over America.
Meanwhile, our politicians are taxing the middle class like crazy. Most people only focus on federal and state income taxes, but that is only a small part of the story. As I detailed the other day, our politicians are taxing us in literally dozens of different ways and it is almost always the middle class that ends up getting hit the hardest.
If America wants to be great again, it is going to need a thriving middle class. But right now the federal government and the big corporations are gobbling up all of the power and all of the money and the middle class is shrinking rapidly.
If current trends continue, eventually there will not be much of a middle class left.
The following are 25 signs that middle class families have been targeted for extinction….
#1 Over the past several decades, millions upon millions of middle class Americans have been systematically turned into government dependents. Back in 1960, social welfare benefits made up approximately 10 percent of all salaries and wages. In the year 2000, social welfare benefits made up approximately 21 percent of all salaries and wages. Today, social welfare benefits make up approximately 35 percent of all salaries and wages.
#2 Unemployment is at epidemic levels and the vast majority of the new jobs that have been "created" in recent years have been low paying jobs. Of those Americans that do have a job at this point, one out of every four works a job that pays $10 an hour or less.
#3 The "working poor" is a group that is rapidly growing in this country. If you can believe it, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
#4 Over the past several decades, the percentage of low income jobs has steadily increased. Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
#5 The way that our economic system is structured today, almost all of the economic rewards go to the very top of the food chain. The following is how income gains in the United States were distributed during 2010….
-37 percent of all income gains went to the top 0.01 percent of all income earners
-56 percent of all income gains went to the rest of the top 1 percent
-7 percent of all income gains went to the bottom 99 percent
#6 Several decades ago, there was a much more even distribution of income in this country. Back in the 1970s, the top 1 percent of all income earners brought in about 8 percent of all income. Today, they bring in about 21 percent of all income.
#7 As the middle class shrinks, the number of "low income" and "poor" Americans is rapidly rising. Today, approximately 48 percent of all Americans are currently either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.
#8 Manufacturing jobs once enabled huge numbers of Americans to enjoy a middle class lifestyle. Unfortunately, those jobs are leaving this country at a breathtaking pace. Back in 1940, 23.4% of all American workers had manufacturing jobs. Today, only 10.4% of all American workers have manufacturing jobs.
#9 In the old days, any man that was willing to work hard and wanted a job could get one. Today, there are millions of American men sitting on their couches at home wondering why nobody will hire them. Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.
#10 The middle class is shrinking at the same time that America is getting poorer as a nation. In the middle of the last century, the United States was #1 in the world in GDP per capita. Today, the United States is #13 in GDP per capita.
#11 Every year now, we see millions of Americans fall out of the middle class. In 2010, 2.6 million more Americans descended into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.
#12 The shrinking middle class is having a disproportionate impact on children. At this point, approximately 22 percent of all American children are living in poverty.
#13 In the old days, most Americans grew up in middle class neighborhoods. Sadly, this is no longer true. In 1970, 65 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods". By 2007, only 44 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods".
#14 The concentration of wealth at the very top of the food chain is astounding. Right now, over 50 percent of all stocks and bonds are owned by just 1 percent of the U.S. population.
#15 When you concentrate too much power in the hands of the federal government and the big corporations, it is inevitable that massive amounts of wealth will become concentrated in just a few hands. In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.
#16 There is nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong with a game where individuals and small businesses cannot compete fairly. According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.
#17 When the number of poor people rapidly expands in a society, that is a recipe for social unrest. At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
#18 The hidden tax of inflation is absolutely devastating middle class families all over America. Since 1970, the U.S. dollar has lost more than 83 percent of its value. Any dollars that middle class families try to save are constantly losing a little bit more value every single day.
#19 American workers that try to play by the rules find that they are constantly fighting a losing battle. According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation.
#20 In recent years, many middle class families have seen their paychecks get smaller. Median household income in the United States has fallen 7.8 percent since December 2007 after adjusting for inflation.
#21 In recent years, many middle class families have seen many of their basic expenses absolutely soar. For example, health insurance costs have risen by 23 percent since Barack Obama became president.
#22 Just turning on the lights and heating their homes has become a major burden for many middle class families. Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
#23 Just putting gas in the car has become a major financial ordeal for millions of hard working Americans. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has increased by more than 100 percent since Barack Obama became president.
#24 Sadly, government dependence is now at an all-time high, and that is the way that many among the elite like it. When Barack Obama took office, there were 32 million Americans on food stamps. Now, there are more than 46 million Americans on food stamps. In particular, an astounding number of children are on food stamps right now. At this point, approximately one-fourth of all American children are enrolled in the food stamp program.
#25 Many middle class families will not be in the middle class for too much longer. According to a shocking new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, 200,000 U.S. households will use the money from their tax refunds this year "to pay for bankruptcy filing and legal fees".
Unless major changes are made on a national level, the middle class is going to continue to disappear.
If you are playing the game the way that the system tells you to play it and you expect to live a middle class lifestyle for many years to come there is a good chance that you will be deeply disappointed at some point.
Millions upon millions of Americans have done everything that the system told them to do and the system has still failed them. They got good grades all the way through school, they went to college, they worked really hard, they stayed out of trouble and they gave everything they could to their employers. In spite of all that, millions of hard working families have still lost their jobs and their homes in recent years.
Do not trust that the system will take care of you, and you should not trust that the government will take care of you either.
We don’t need the federal government to hand out more money to everyone. Government handouts are already at record levels and the government is not even coming close to paying for all of this reckless spending.
More government spending is not going to solve any of our problems.
Instead, what we need is an environment where the size and power of the federal government is limited and the size and the power of the big corporations is limited. We need an environment where individuals and small businesses can thrive and compete fairly.
Unfortunately, neither major political party is going to move us in that direction, so there is not much hope for solutions on the national level any time soon.
On an individual level, we can all learn how to prepare for the very difficult years that are coming. It is imperative that we all work to become more independent of the system, because the system could fail at any time.
If you have blind faith that your job will always be there and that the federal government will rescue you if the economy crashes then you are likely to be bitterly disappointed at some point.
The truth is that our economy is slowly dying and the great American middle class is being systematically wiped out.
Many of the things that worked in the past are not going to work any longer.
You can choose to adapt or you can suffer the consequences.
Our world is rapidly changing, and we all need to prepare for what is coming
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch … extinction
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:12 pm
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com
25 Signs That Middle Class Families Have Been Targeted For Extinction
The middle class in America is being systematically wiped out, and most people don’t even realize what is happening. Every single year, millions more Americans fall out of the middle class and become dependent on the government. The United States once had the largest and most vibrant middle class in the history of the world, but now the middle class is rapidly shrinking and government dependence is at an all-time high. So why is this happening? Well, America is becoming a poorer nation at the same time that wealth is becoming extremely concentrated at the very top. At this point, our economic system is designed to funnel as much money and power to the federal government and to the big corporations as possible. Individuals and small businesses have a really hard time thriving in this environment. To most big corporations these days, workers are viewed as financial liabilities. Most corporations want to reduce their payrolls as much as possible. You see, the truth is that most corporations want to be just like Apple. If you can believe it, Apple makes $400,000 in profit per employee. Big corporations don’t care that you need to pay the mortgage and provide for your family. Their goal is to make as much money as possible. And most of the control freaks that run our bloated federal government don’t care much about middle class families either. To many politicians and federal bureaucrats, middle class families are “useless eaters” that are constantly damaging the environment with their “excessive” lifestyles. In this day and age, neither the federal government nor the big corporations really have much use for middle class Americans, and that is really, really bad news for the the future of the middle class family in America.
There are three key factors that are constantly chipping away at the middle class….
-Globalization
-Inflation
-Taxes
Labor has become a global commodity, and American workers are often 10 to 20 times as expensive as workers on the other side of the world are. Middle class jobs (such as manufacturing, etc.) have been leaving this country at an astounding pace. Competition for the jobs that remain has become extremely fierce, and this has driven wages down. The following is from a recent article in the New York Times….
But in the last two decades, something more fundamental has changed, economists say. Midwage jobs started disappearing. Particularly among Americans without college degrees, today’s new jobs are disproportionately in service occupations — at restaurants or call centers, or as hospital attendants or temporary workers — that offer fewer opportunities for reaching the middle class.
As paychecks have stagnated, the cost of living has continued to escalate. Middle class families are finding that their paychecks simply do not go nearly as far as they did before. This is creating a tremendous amount of financial stress in households all over America.
Meanwhile, our politicians are taxing the middle class like crazy. Most people only focus on federal and state income taxes, but that is only a small part of the story. As I detailed the other day, our politicians are taxing us in literally dozens of different ways and it is almost always the middle class that ends up getting hit the hardest.
If America wants to be great again, it is going to need a thriving middle class. But right now the federal government and the big corporations are gobbling up all of the power and all of the money and the middle class is shrinking rapidly.
If current trends continue, eventually there will not be much of a middle class left.
The following are 25 signs that middle class families have been targeted for extinction….
#1 Over the past several decades, millions upon millions of middle class Americans have been systematically turned into government dependents. Back in 1960, social welfare benefits made up approximately 10 percent of all salaries and wages. In the year 2000, social welfare benefits made up approximately 21 percent of all salaries and wages. Today, social welfare benefits make up approximately 35 percent of all salaries and wages.
#2 Unemployment is at epidemic levels and the vast majority of the new jobs that have been “created” in recent years have been low paying jobs. Of those Americans that do have a job at this point, one out of every four works a job that pays $10 an hour or less.
#3 The “working poor” is a group that is rapidly growing in this country. If you can believe it, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
#4 Over the past several decades, the percentage of low income jobs has steadily increased. Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
#5 The way that our economic system is structured today, almost all of the economic rewards go to the very top of the food chain. The following is how income gains in the United States were distributed during 2010….
-37 percent of all income gains went to the top 0.01 percent of all income earners
-56 percent of all income gains went to the rest of the top 1 percent
-7 percent of all income gains went to the bottom 99 percent
#6 Several decades ago, there was a much more even distribution of income in this country. Back in the 1970s, the top 1 percent of all income earners brought in about 8 percent of all income. Today, they bring in about 21 percent of all income.
#7 As the middle class shrinks, the number of “low income” and “poor” Americans is rapidly rising. Today, approximately 48 percent of all Americans are currently either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.
#8 Manufacturing jobs once enabled huge numbers of Americans to enjoy a middle class lifestyle. Unfortunately, those jobs are leaving this country at a breathtaking pace. Back in 1940, 23.4% of all American workers had manufacturing jobs. Today, only 10.4% of all American workers have manufacturing jobs.
#9 In the old days, any man that was willing to work hard and wanted a job could get one. Today, there are millions of American men sitting on their couches at home wondering why nobody will hire them. Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.
#10 The middle class is shrinking at the same time that America is getting poorer as a nation. In the middle of the last century, the United States was #1 in the world in GDP per capita. Today, the United States is #13 in GDP per capita.
#11 Every year now, we see millions of Americans fall out of the middle class. In 2010, 2.6 million more Americans descended into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.
#12 The shrinking middle class is having a disproportionate impact on children. At this point, approximately 22 percent of all American children are living in poverty.
#13 In the old days, most Americans grew up in middle class neighborhoods. Sadly, this is no longer true. In 1970, 65 percent of all Americans lived in “middle class neighborhoods”. By 2007, only 44 percent of all Americans lived in “middle class neighborhoods”.
#14 The concentration of wealth at the very top of the food chain is astounding. Right now, over 50 percent of all stocks and bonds are owned by just 1 percent of the U.S. population.
#15 When you concentrate too much power in the hands of the federal government and the big corporations, it is inevitable that massive amounts of wealth will become concentrated in just a few hands. In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.
#16 There is nothing wrong with making money, but there is something wrong with a game where individuals and small businesses cannot compete fairly. According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.
#17 When the number of poor people rapidly expands in a society, that is a recipe for social unrest. At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
#18 The hidden tax of inflation is absolutely devastating middle class families all over America. Since 1970, the U.S. dollar has lost more than 83 percent of its value. Any dollars that middle class families try to save are constantly losing a little bit more value every single day.
#19 American workers that try to play by the rules find that they are constantly fighting a losing battle. According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation.
#20 In recent years, many middle class families have seen their paychecks get smaller. Median household income in the United States has fallen 7.8 percent since December 2007 after adjusting for inflation.
#21 In recent years, many middle class families have seen many of their basic expenses absolutely soar. For example, health insurance costs have risen by 23 percent since Barack Obama became president.
#22 Just turning on the lights and heating their homes has become a major burden for many middle class families. Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
#23 Just putting gas in the car has become a major financial ordeal for millions of hard working Americans. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has increased by more than 100 percent since Barack Obama became president.
#24 Sadly, government dependence is now at an all-time high, and that is the way that many among the elite like it. When Barack Obama took office, there were 32 million Americans on food stamps. Now, there are more than 46 million Americans on food stamps. In particular, an astounding number of children are on food stamps right now. At this point, approximately one-fourth of all American children are enrolled in the food stamp program.
#25 Many middle class families will not be in the middle class for too much longer. According to a shocking new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, 200,000 U.S. households will use the money from their tax refunds this year “to pay for bankruptcy filing and legal fees“.
Unless major changes are made on a national level, the middle class is going to continue to disappear.
If you are playing the game the way that the system tells you to play it and you expect to live a middle class lifestyle for many years to come there is a good chance that you will be deeply disappointed at some point.
Millions upon millions of Americans have done everything that the system told them to do and the system has still failed them. They got good grades all the way through school, they went to college, they worked really hard, they stayed out of trouble and they gave everything they could to their employers. In spite of all that, millions of hard working families have still lost their jobs and their homes in recent years.
Do not trust that the system will take care of you, and you should not trust that the government will take care of you either.
We don’t need the federal government to hand out more money to everyone. Government handouts are already at record levels and the government is not even coming close to paying for all of this reckless spending.
More government spending is not going to solve any of our problems.
Instead, what we need is an environment where the size and power of the federal government is limited and the size and the power of the big corporations is limited. We need an environment where individuals and small businesses can thrive and compete fairly.
Unfortunately, neither major political party is going to move us in that direction, so there is not much hope for solutions on the national level any time soon.
On an individual level, we can all learn how to prepare for the very difficult years that are coming. It is imperative that we all work to become more independent of the system, because the system could fail at any time.
If you have blind faith that your job will always be there and that the federal government will rescue you if the economy crashes then you are likely to be bitterly disappointed at some point.
The truth is that our economy is slowly dying and the great American middle class is being systematically wiped out.
Many of the things that worked in the past are not going to work any longer.
You can choose to adapt or you can suffer the consequences.
Our world is rapidly changing, and we all need to prepare for what is coming.
View full post on The Economic Collapse
American • More than 1.4 million families live on $2 a day per person
The number of families living on $2 or less per person per day for at least a month in the USA has more than doubled in 15 years to 1.46 million.
By Steven Exum, for USA TODAY
Jessica Stevens, 21, has two children, Kmarie, 2 and Nekota, 16-months-old. She receives subsidies such as Work First, DSS childcare subsidy and Food Stamps. She attends school with the help of a Pell grant. She is on the dean’s list.
That’s up from 636,000 households in 1996, says a new study released by researchers at the University of Michigan and Harvard University.
Government benefits blunt the impact of such extreme poverty, but not completely, says one of the researchers, Luke Shaefer, a professor of social work at Michigan.
When food stamps are included as income, the number of households in extreme poverty, defined as living on $2 a day, drops to 800,000, Shaefer says. That’s up from 475,000 in 1996.
"This seems to be a group that has fallen through the cracks," says Kathryn Edin, a Harvard researcher and professor of public policy.
Living on $2 a day
The number of American households with cash income of no more than $2 a day per person doubled in 15 years:
Source: National Poverty Center
The study found that among households in extreme poverty, one in five received rent vouchers or lived in public housing. Sixty-six percent had at least one child with public health insurance. The study did not factor in how those benefits affect household income.
Robert Rector, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, says most aid to the poor today is in non-cash assistance. Last year, he says, the federal and state government spent $900 billion on 70 programs that assist the poor, from health care and food stamps to energy assistance and college grants.
"When you look at that type of family, you don’t see the type of deprivation this study suggests," he says.
Because the study shows households in extreme poverty for a month, it is more reflective of people losing jobs, getting divorced or having short-term crises, he says.
Shaefer says, "We are trying to document the growth in deep poverty. … Even one month living at this level is concerning."
Magdalyn March, 30, of Birmingham, Ala., can relate to those living in extreme poverty. In 2006, she lost a seasonal job at a packing warehouse, split with an abusive boyfriend and was caring for her two children. She received about $200 a month in government cash assistance and $282 in food stamps.
March and her children lived in a motel when she was with her boyfriend. When he left, she couldn’t afford the room, and she and her children were kicked out. March stayed with friends and relatives for a few nights at a time but ended up in a homeless shelter.
She credits the shelter, First Light, with helping her find a job as a waitress at a chain restaurant and affordable day care. She says she still struggles. She needs glasses and has to go to the dentist but can’t afford it. March and her children are living with her mother now.
"You’ve got to come up with a system," she says, "because you can’t live off of that. You really can’t."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/sto … 53227386/1
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Feb 24, 2012 9:39 am
View full post on opinions.caduceusx.com