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50% Of American Workers Make Less Than $28,031 A Year
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,
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...
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.
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I can't take it anymore. I'm going for an MSNBC marathon.
The reality is $28K/year is still significantly higher than what many people throughout the world make, often people who worked and studied in school much harder than those in the US making <$30K.
There is no law that says humans born in the boundaries of present day America are guaranteed to forever to have lifestyles significantly better than the rest of the world, a world that today emphasizes and education and hardwork (which the US used to emphasize, but now promotes dependancy for votes supported by the petrodollar). I lived in Asia for awhile and the quality and work ethic there put the average person in my highschool and college to shame.
Large portions of America's population has lived their life on the assumption that they can coast by in school and everything else, and just assume they will be provided for well. This has worked for a long time, so it will be a surprise when to them it stops, but it will stop eventually.
Home of the sheep,
Land of the Slave!
Wars cost money. Printing to pay for them coming out of the asses’ of the middle classes. How stupid the sheeple are is what this should read. Take a poll, 72% of the maroons want another war in Syria.
Ebola will fix this problem. Wage will skyrocket due to labor shortage.
The real problem:
Each year, the Cost of Government Center, in partnership with Americans for Tax Reform Foundation, calculates the Cost of Government Day. This day marks the point during the year when the average American has earned enough income to pay for his or her share of the spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government at the federal, state and local levels.
This year, the Cost of Government Day (COGD) falls on July 6. This means that Americans have to work 186 days out of the year in order to meet the costs imposed by the government. This will be the sixth consecutive year that COGD occurs in July. Before Obama took office in 2009, the latest calculated Cost of Government Day fell on June 27.
The total cost of government in 2014 is 51 percent of the annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This year, Americans had to work 121 days to pay for total spending, which made up 33 percent of GDP. Americans worked 81 days to pay for federal spending and 40 days to pay for state and local spending. To pay for regulatory costs, Americans had to work 42 days to meet federal regulations and 23 days to meet state regulations. In total, regulatory costs amount to a full 17 percent of GDP.
http://costofgovernment.org/cost-government-arrives-july-a1853
Please translate down to the 5th grade reading level so 90% of us can understand WTF you just said...
Thanks
Good article by Snyder. Hopefully he sticks to this format instead of numbered lists and doom porn.
I was thinking the same thing! What? No numbered list?
I hope you are being sarcastic otherwise you are just a retard (which then makes you part of a bigger problem).
That's not counting the debt or the deficit. Wait til that ship comes to port and it will be either a bankruptcy and a total reform, or a decade of all-December cost of government days.
Home prices are double, triple, quadruple of what they were twenty years ago, and people are making a third, half, a quarter of what they were making. Something is wrong here, either people are going to all of a sudden earn more or home prices are going to collapse --> or we hyperinflate our way out of this.
Nothing is wrong here. The 1% who own most of the net financial wealth of this country think that a quadrupling of their property portfolio value is fine and dandy, thank you very much. For the 99%: just keep up with your rent and debt payments to the 1%, please.
a simple solution DID NOT happen due to fascism, of course by law a corporation is an individual. tax the fuck out profits of shit not produced in america. hello, think about it. fox con would not be an assembly/production center for apple. hello again, apple wouldn't be getting to profit back to shareholders via bonds. hello again and again. if a corporation wants to outsource labor cost to china, vietnam or anywhere, then tax the living fuck out of that portion. it is called nationalism. but with lobbiests and fascism in place it will never happen. dont get me wrong i hate taxation in any form. but, it would have discouraged the great sucking sound ross perot warned of. sure some industries would have relocated irregardless, to survive world trade least common denominator of labor, mainly comodity type products. and sure cost of apples would even be higher or maybe instead of 38 percent margins, 20-24 percent and jobs here. any laws put in place via nafta ect. would be violated and/or changed because they could have. fuck clinton and his double speak when it was passed(nafta).it is called dealing with manipulators such as china with their peg. call out the reality that corporations OWN politicians and middle class got fucked by 100's of laws that fucked the middle class and we voted this same bunch again and again while they fucked us over. people of merica just don't get it, but whine all the same, but fall for these disengeneous ads talking of bringing jobs back, when i know they would be lone voices(ron paul)up against a fascist lobby of corporations with more money to influence these treasonist elected fucks...
it is hopeless because we are on a path of no return. constitution trashed, people sheepol syndrome and money money and moar printed money(for free) run the shit show. we are fucked, and prepare for the shit storm of dolla demise. so many problems and so few informed people to make a difference...
Wars may cost money but they can also pay huge dividends.
In the USSA, a serf can purchase a gallon of unleaded gasoline (31,000 kilocalories, 36 kilowatt hours, or 15.5 days of their USDA daily requirement) for a mere 2.25 hours of labor at the minimum slave wage.
But, but, we are exceptional damit!!!
What turned Americans from hard workers a generation or two ago to sluggards today? You said it yourself, the US PROMOTES DEPENDENCY. As in, the government, as a matter of policy, promotes dependency. Jefferson noted theire were two natural parties of man, one which felt that the mass of people could best rule themselves and the other that said it was best if they were ruled by an elite group. I think the ruling class in DC (both parties) are of the latter philosophy and actively promote policies which turn the American people into people who need an elite to rule them.
The American Middle Class has values which are anathema to the idea of a global ruling elite, and since those types run both parties they implement policies which are ensuring that the American middle class is destroyed- such as the corporate tax code which rewards American corporations for becoming global corporations and outsourcing our manufacturing base. If they leave their profits at home they get taxed at one of the highest rates in the world, but if they make money off shore then they never have to pay U.S. Taxes on it, unless they bring it back home! You could not think of a tax policy more suited to offshoring American jobs.
Then they both tell us we can have “free trade” with unfree people. That the Chinese are now a “most favored nation” in trade status. That we should not put tariffs on Chinese goods even though they have a captive labor force of one billion human souls. They are like a gigantic 21st century plantation, but somehow our workers are supposed to compete against people that have virtual slaves. Well, let me tell you something, trading on the labor of unfree people was the wrong way to get cheap cotton in 1850 and its the wrong way to get cheap junk from China now.
And the money. Don't look at the wages, look at the money and what they have done to it- both parties. When I was born the dollar could be exchanged for gold by any nation on earth, 35 dollars to the ounce. And our coins were made of silver, just common quarters and dimes were 90% silver. Today the melt value of each of those quarters from the year I was born is $3.35 per quarter. So four quarters from the year I was born have a melt value of $13.00 now. So a wage of $7.00 an hour in 1961 money would be like a wage of $91 an hour today!
What happened to our money? Our gold is gone and our silver is gone. It has been replaced by DEBT. Debt they now say that we owe to them. Instead of real money that naturally buys more as we get more productive they give us fake money that they can drain the value from. We now have to scramble for wage hikes just to stay even. They steal value from the dollar by over-printing. Then they give us a few government peanuts with some of what they stole. We see that and we think they are giving us free stuff. What they have really been doing is stealing from us in ways hard to detect and giving a little back with grand announcements and brass bands. The result is that people connected to government, to the political system, and to the global banks have gotten richer and the rest of us have gotten poorer. Both parties are hip deep in it. They are both all about going global, not looking out for America.
You want change for the better, here is where it starts. Here it is: Quit voting for the people whose policies have been robbing you blind. That's the first step. And until you take it, its not gonna get better.
Quit voting....PERIOD. Voting violates the nonaggression principle, and only encourages the welfare crack ho criminals that wil always infest seats of power (DC, Sacramento, City Hall, etc.)
If you understand the nonagression principle perhaps you could explain it to me. "In contrast to nonviolence, the non-aggression principle does not preclude violence used in self-defense or defense of others." "Aggression, for the purposes of NAP, is defined as the initiation or threatening of violence against a person or legitimately owned property of another. Specifically, any unsolicited actions of others that physically affect an individual’s property or person, no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficial, or neutral to the owner, are considered violent or aggressive when they are against the owner's free will and interfere with his right toself-determination and the principle of self-ownership."....this is from wikipedia. My question is this how does the non agression principle justify protecting you children....and how is property defined?...I am truly curious so if somebody can help me out I would be very grateful.
People usually or at least often vote to use the government's monopoly on legal violence on others to benefit themselves or force their ideas/opinions on others.
That's how voting violates the NAP.
For instance people with children vote to increase property taxes so the local schools can buy computers that are already obsolete at full list when they were the newest thing from a crony vendor. This is to benefit their children at the expense of those without school age children.
Germany asked for its 1300 tons of Gold, and were even denied to enter the vault! There is no Gold and Germany has lost 1300 tons
It is corporate power, corporate greed and the corporate oligarchy are driving the middle classes into the ground. Today, Congress is no more than a campaign financed puppet doing their bidding against the American people.
plus one pay day, to the point with many fewer words than i was trying to post above...
No, the problem is the government. Everything you speak of starts with a statist government.
If you want equality on a global scale go wait tables in Bangladesh.
They are improving in BD, not fast and not anywhere near our standard but making progress without any meaningful resources, opposed to most of Africa
If only the cost of living was as low as it was in other countries I would conceed your point.
+1
A higher wage for America was never fair, it was always earned by "exploiting" poorer countries. Nowadays people want to have their cake and eat it too: they want high wages for themselves AND high/"fair" wages for people in poorer countries. That simply cannot work; it's illogcal and stupidity. So keep in mind that every humanitarian execise and aid you praise or support comes out of our own pockets. If we can't bear to see the third world suffer then we'll pay for it dearly. If we want to be rich again then our military should be put to work enslaving the 3rd world to perform more work on our behalf, rather than "freeing" them and sponsoring political and economic development in their countries so that they can revolt against us and demand ever higher wages.
P.S. - Exploitation does not merely happen between countries, it also happens within America, and even within every single human social relationship to some degree. You can go ahead and cry about it, but until you man up and start behaving like a predator yourself you will always be the prey/loser in the equation.
It's ludicrous, zaphod, that you've gotten as many minuses as you've gotten (38 of em as I type) since your core thesis is true: Younger Americans, particularly Millenials, do not exert themselves like earlier generations did. Sure, lying Progressive propaganda in some large measure convinced them they didn't need to work as hard, but ultimately it's their fail.
Except in most of the places where people make much less than 28K/yr. 28K/yr would allow a person to live like a king.In the USA not so much.
Why do people coast in the USA? Because working hard is for suckers. I've been a hard working sucker so I know. Work your ass off to get ahead and what happens to most of us? We get pounded down for being a nail that sticks up.Working hard on a treadmill is pointless.When the US starts rewarding hard work again instead of punishing it you'll see americans working hard more often.
Lets face facts, most hard workers in this country won't live much better than the slackers. The penalty for slacking has been shifted from the slackers to the hard workers. We have an economy which benefits the financial parasites at the top also to the detriment of hard workers.Very few hard workers make it through the bariers to actually be paid what they are worth. But like Janet Yellen does, the victim is blamed. He just didn't do what he should have done in this system of financial repression.
ha i was watching them as soon as i saw the school shooting thing on here. I wanted to see how long it would take them to trot someone out to talk about needing moar gun control. I didnt have to wait long....
We need hatchet control, too!
I think I will go to the USA.
It must be so nice to win some money without working. ...
hehe.
Might be true if you born into one of the oligarchic families. A Bush, Biden or Clinton, for instance.
http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/10/net-worth-every-american-president-info...
power = money
hard work = more hard work
don't you idiots get it
my co-worker's sister makes $72 /hr on the computer . She has been unemployed for eight months but last month her check was $12806 just working on the computer for a few hours. check this... www.yelptrade.com
How hard is it to 86 this asshole?
I thought obvious satire was expected at the club.
This seems like the more significant number to me. "72 percent of American workers made less than $50,000 last year."
That's 3/4 of Americans who can't even begin to afford a low end new car except on credit. Henry Ford derived great success from paying workers enough to buy one of his new cars, and they didn't have car loans back then. But it's probably considered socialist here on ZHDrudge to point that out.
i don't consider it socialist. He did so because he wanted to, there wasnt the 'gun to his head' force of govt making him do it, therefor it isnt socialist or authoritarian. Although I will say this- wealth inequality has gotten much worse in the past couple decades. During that time, do you think we have become a more, or less, free market economy?
More fascist. I look at what corporations have done to our economy for the answer to the people we don't want in charge. The Founders had this idea that the People could keep unelected oligarchs in check. But they didn't count on MSM and Citizens United.
Hey rand guys sit around on their ass all day printing money legally, there is your inequality. Stop ragging on the producers, this is Zero Hedge, we know a fucking tribe banker when we see one.
Do you still teach at a public school hypocrite douchebag? Since I pay your salary, can you spend a little less time posting on ZH and spend more time teaching?
Fascism means bigger government and more control. You are under the delusion that we can have a nanny state that also allows freedom and does what's best for the people. Unfortunately, those who strive for power are usually corrupt and control freaks. Most normal people don't want to be senators, presidents, or high ranking bureaucrats.
every since society and civilization began, THIS WAS ALWAYS THE MAIN PROBLEM. those who are most power hungry and reckless are the ones most likley to strive to the throne.
this is simply the defining feature of human history. how we got warlords, dictators, kings, the monarchs and now....democracy tadaaa!!!
hahaahh. francis fukuyama was never right. his bullshit was always government sponsored congratulation at a time when the democracy was beginning to openly fail.
slavoj zizek talks about the coming technocracy autocracy of the apparatchiks. the west cannot really push forward without something breaking in the body politic.
it has become more fascist. which is the inevitable result of more govt. fascist or socialist, it doesnt matter. it is a more authoritarian govt that takes more from people, and gives less in return. You seem to have the idea that a big, but kind, gentle, and benevolent govt can exist, and help people. But it can't, and it won't. The more control you give to an unaccountable bueracracy, the worse off you will be. history is full of examples
Well, LetThemEatRand, Citizens United is allowing the Democrats to spend tens if not hundreds of millions more this election cycle than Republicans, since almost all of the billionaire fat cats (and the super PACS) are Democratic.
Therefore, do I think Citizens United should be trashed? Fuck, no. The radical left's assault on free speech is 1984-like in its virulence, intensity, and strength. Those of us who value freedom and liberty want more speech, and hang the consequences.
corporations and too big to fail banks have sold you the illusion of a "free market economy." Its only truly free to those who get given hundreds of billions of newly minted cash, interest free. I bet that's not you.
Henry Ford wanted worker bees, same as Woodrow Wilson, fascists both.
“We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.” - Woodrow Wilson
He wanted more worker bees who could afford what they produced. Despite popular belief here, I don't believe that everyone can be a Henry Ford. Nor do I begrudge Ford for making a shit ton of money. But workers should be able to buy what they make in most instances, or they are just slaves. And ironically, Ford derived great success in selling to his own workers.
Sure, I guess thats why Ford received the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle as a birthday present in 1938.
Because he believed in the "folks" or is it volks...lol.
Government workers can afford new cars but the only things they make are burdens.
Henry Ford was a great American. He wasn't alone...certainly even in Michigan today...for his beliefs. But don't confuse that with River Rouge.
Hitler's personal driver drove a Ford for a reason...and it wasn't to p!ease Hitler.
Folks here talk of the State as if the current crop is "too big." It was a lot bigger in Henry Ford's era. Bottom line: America was better off for it.
The Government didn't run on debt but production back then. Plan Victory meant actually making something...taking on Big Business, squeezing out corruption, getting America out of its Great Depression.
These clowns bankrupted Detroit. Nuff said.
"Folks here talk of the State as if the current crop is "too big." It was a lot bigger in Henry Ford's era."
That has never made it right.
They are mandating seatbelts, seatbelts dude, no harm can come to anyone from me by me not wearing a seatbelt. They are attempting to mandate caloric intake like good little nazis. They spy on everything we say or do through the NSA & Homeland Insecurity. They are militarizing local cops. They refuse to secure common borders even in the midst of a panic they desire. They try to even inhibit our speech by PC. They control media. They destroy the national currency and say its for our benefit. They ship our jobs overseas and say its cheaper for us as long as we are subsidized by moar government intervention and printing.
Yes, its too big. Way too fucking big.
Seriously? Govt was bigger and we were better for it? Everything the govt has, it takes from it citizens, by force. And that whole'getting America out of the great depression' thing has been disproven. Everything FDR did only prolonged the misery. You need to read some Rothbard. Everything Roosevelt did only prolonged the depression, and eroded civil liberties and people's freedoms. There is a reason why none of that new deal shit was mentioned in the constitution. It is not the proper role of govt.
The purpose of government is to work for the people. Not for the corporations and the billionaire oligarchic class. That's where the USA has stuffed up.
Folks here talk of the State as if the current crop is "too big." It was a lot bigger in Henry Ford's era. Bottom line: America was better off for it.
You are an idiot or a congenital liar. When my father started out, taxes took 15% of his income. Now its about 50%.
Pay attention to facts, or crawl back under your rock.
Ayn Rand is fingering her bony vagina!
Rand considered workers to be leeches. Pay as little as possible. Their ability to buy their own product was irrelevant to her. To her, you are either a producer or shit on her shoes.
And what good is hiring someone who isn't a producer? In my experience, employees are either problems or solutions. If the former, get rid of 'em. If the latter, hang on to 'em, even if that means paying them more than your competitors. Employees are hired to do a job first and foremost, not to be paid a salary for merely existing.
A careful reading of Rand's books show she was fine with productive employees who add value. She disliked unproductive employees who want the salary and perks of their more productive peers. Rand especially had it in for unions who acted as parasites and bled their host companies white (like the UAW did to GM). She would not approve of low skill, relatively interchangable, fast food workers who demand upwards of $15/hr.
I'm guessing you either work for the Government or belong to a union.
I own my own business. So you are wrong again. As in so many things. Such as belonging to a cult co-created by Alan Greenspan. But he's your tribe. I think I can say that here since ZH does not ban people for speaking of your tribe in a derogatory sense.
Really? You have a business and you keep people on your payroll who don't produce? That sounds like more of a charity than a business to me.
So you're wrong but you go on the attack anyway instead of saying, "gee, Rand, I'm wrong. I'm an idiot and I said something that is wrong and I guess I should rethink my point. And I'll continue posting here even though it is anti-tribe, because I self-loathe." Tribalism.
Who is Alan Greenspan?
I'm really at a loss as to why you keep going on & on about Alan Greenspan and implying that I'm part of his "tribe". Yes, I am a fan of Rand's books, particularly AS and The Fountainhead. While I agree with many of AR's ideas, I don't consider myself an objectivist. I think AR was a brilliant woman, but I also recognize she was very flawed as a person. Even so, I seperate her ideas from her personality. Much like someone can appreciate the art of an artist they don't much care for personally. She was also rich enought that she wasn't a ward of the state. I pay into SS, so I will collect my share when the time comes--its only fair.
I read Brandon's biograpy of her, so I know Greenspan was one of her followers. Its also clear that he's evolved quite a bit since his association with AR. Beyond that, I really don't give a shit about Alan Greenspan. I never even mentioned him, but for some strange reason, you keep bringing him up over and over.
Just because you say I'm "wrong" doesn't mean I am. I am actually pretty darn successful. Not in the top 1%, but not far away either. I own an LLC and have done my share of people management, including hiring/firing, so I know what to value in an employee. We don't put up with slackers--we ease them out quite effectively. And part of my success is due to not listening to every ass clown who tell me how "wrong" I am. I mostly only listen to people who have PROVEN their credibility. Sadly, you are not one of those Mr. Rand--not even close.
Lastly, one of the great things about AR and her work is that it provides a nearly perfect litmus test. That is, the anti-Rand moonbats fall into one of three categories:
1. Leftists, running the gamut from liberal to outright Communist. The more rabid a Rand hater they are, the more of a Commie they are
2. Losers who go on and on about how "unfair" everything is. In short, people who are dupes for the Commie/Socialist agenda.
3. Bad actors who have never actually read her books, but their psuedo-intellectual friends hate AR ..... and they want to fit it.
Rand was a hypocrite who lived off social security benefits in her old age.
Hey asshole, I'm fairly certain that the royalties from her books dwarfed whatever SS payments she got. She wasn't eating dog food in her old age, that's for sure.
I wish I could afford dog food, you lucky bastard, all that marrow bone goodness.
"Hey asshole, I'm fairly certain that the royalties from her books dwarfed whatever SS payments she got."
Funny you don't see it (I know why), but Rand had no principles. She preached self-reliance, yet she sucked off the teat when it was to her benefit. She didn't need the money, but she took it anyway. I don't expect you to understand why this would be a negative to some. Same reason you can worship Rand while posting on a website that considers Alan Greenspan (her co-author) less than awesome. Cognitive Dissonance. Shameless self-interest. Narcissism. Douchebaggery. Your altar.
And that differs from someone that takes business deductions or a mortgage deduction in what way?
You mean how is it different if you write a book about how it's wrong and then you do it anyway while sucking Alan Greenspan's cock, or just in general?
Methinks you have a latent homosexual crush on Alan Greenspan. Just say'in. No worries, I won't tell Andrea Mitchell.
And you have those principles?
I've seen you post so much bullshit on so many different topics, that's a freaking joke.
But she was quite happy to keep cashing her SS checks, eh. What a good little libertarian role model, sucking off the tax payers teat.
http://knowledgenuts.com/2013/09/20/ayn-rand-was-a-secret-welfare-queen/
http://www.alternet.org/story/149721/ayn_rand_railed_against_government_benefits%2C_but_grabbed_social_security_and_medicare_when_she_needed_them?page=0%2C0
And yet there are those who can form a cogent thought, who have never worked a day in their lives and have contributed absolutely nothing.
What are they called?
late for dinner ???
Isn't she entitled to the social security benefits that she paid for all her working life? Social security is not charity. It is a kind of pension plan.
SS is not a pension plan, it is a ponzi scheme. All unfunded or underfunded pension plans are ponzi schemes. Think about not only the higher taxes that will need to be paid by younger generations but they will also need to fundpension shortfalls. Disgusting.
It appears you have no idea what a "Ponzi scheme" actually is. Its very easy to fully fund Social Security. Just extend the income threshold for deductions up to $1M pa.
So increase the pool of players in the ponzi then.
Excellent idea! ;-)
Yeah, its a Ponzi scheme, but I paid into it all my adult life, so I want to get something back. Is that wrong? If you want to pay into it, but won't take the $$ on principle, all I can say is: THANKS!
Actually, if you had read Atlas Shrugged, you would know that it contained example after example of the heroine (Dagny Taggart) offering insanely generous salaries to people that demonstrated "ability".
"Who is Manuel "Mannie" Garcia O'Kelly-Davis"?
This is a much better question. "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" BLOWS DOORS on Atlas Shrugged. And people actually WORK hard and have a brain. Everyone in A.S. today would be taking 'selfies' all day and whoring for clicks, they are so friggen egomaniacal.
great stat---but it is even worse than that. I believe that stat covers only those workers 25 years or older. The number would be even worse if the age were 18 or 19.
Once there was the giant American Worker stalking the earth .
Now
https://www.academia.edu/8945501/Dinosaur_Death_by_Dwarfism
It's a race to the bottom, and the gelding 'America' is keeping pace...
check out median income if you use a real measure of CPI:
http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/2012/788/image006.gif
Listen Zero's,
Pew Research a.k.a. Pee You Research publishes garbage because they are garbage.
OH!
<--up if you know these stories.
<---down if zh is posting "news to you" these days.
Sorry...alotta this shit is just obvious filler shit these days.
and you had better believe that our corporate media will NOT give this statistic much cover. They prefer the household income number. That tends to obscure how low wages really are.
Welcome to the New World Order. American Serfs enjoy your time on the feudal manor 2.0....
but the stock market is going up so that means everything is fine and dandy
I Know!!, whats wrong with people why won't they just buy assets?
Eliminating the minimum wage should see wages rise across the board.
Remember the dinosaurs ?
How small will you have to be to survive ?
And your grandchildren .
Dwarves .
See
https://www.academia.edu/8945501/Dinosaur_Death_by_Dwarfism
Let's get small.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK-cTgT8RR8
Why did all the smaller dinosaurs also die? There were dinosaurs the size of rats and chickens that died out
Birds and lizards did okay.
declining wages could more or less be ignored if not for inflation.
as a lad I earned 6,000$ a year and had an apartment, a stereo, a foreign sports car and beer money. that was around 1974.
six thousand dollars thats about a year of obamacare premiums under the affordable care act these days.
Thats how far inflation has burned up our lives.
Energy. Purchasing. Power.
It peaked at an all-time high a few decades ago, right around the time US oil production hit peak. As, of course, and as is endlessly repeated, did, real incomes.
No mystery here. $28k is still quite a few barrels of oil. Way more than the average (worldwide) person can afford, let alone the average historical person.
By destroying the middle class the civil servants also destroy the people's ability to confront the elites. If you are dependent on the elites for your meals then they own you like a dog who does tricks for treats.
wage slaves and corporate serfs.
It's not even 'slow motion' any more unless you are totally clueless. I called this path in '98 when I worked with A LOT of H1B visas and had never even heard of it.. Worked with some cool people, but knew deep down it was a friggen scam. Between the mfg outsourcing and H1Bs I was railing for years about how work is going to go 'POOF! and like that, it's gone".
One guy yells at me like I'm being a racist, saying, "THEY'RE JUST TRYING TO MAKE A LIFE!" And I had to remind him I had no problem with the 'people', it was the companies abusing it.. He's been unemployed for over a year now. "Highly skilled' my ass - just as skilled as anyone else. I think H1Bs should be reserved for INSTRUCTORS - I'd be happy to learn tons of new shit and see what the curriculum is like elsewhere, but we all know it's b.s.
Any how, no matter what people say during 'arguments' - I know all I have to do is wait... and they will come to see it. Because NOTHING is improving. And it WON'T... Extrapolate, save, prepare for the worst, and embrace the shit. There's happiness there too. I talk so much gloom people are surpised I don't off myself - then I tell them about the garden and solar and ethanol projects, and PMs and FAs and on and on.
My shit goes into affect and gets ratcheted up as the system winds down - if this piece of crap stabilizes, I don't have to worry about storing 10k gal of water, but as shit deteriorates, maybe that's in the cards.
Work hard, adapt, and save as much as possible - it's an asset grab - don't let these fuckers near it and speak out against these fascist POSs whenever you get a chance. Telling everyone that congress is a pile of steaming globalist FUCKS is MY version of "Did you know Jesus died for your sins?"
"50% Of American Workers Make Less Than $28,031 A Year"
Well, I guess that would mean if everybody reported their earnings, those figures could be accurate.
Anybody here participating in that vile, corrupt system?
I didn't think so.
Dow 18,000.
Gold $25,000.
In my city's school district, about 20% of students in middle school flunked English and math in the first 6 weeks of this year. The numbers above are not surprising.
~another victory for commie-core and NWO indoctrination
Quick, everyone get a government job! Golden benefits, double market salary, and best of all...work just 20 years and get your very own tax-free pension! Offer only open to friends adn relatives.
Mommas in America were discouraged in a song many years ago from letting their children grow up to be cowboys, it appears to have been a reasonable decision. Today after viewing the lifestyles associated with many career paths, politics and the route of so called "public service" seems to offer much potential.
A career in politics can grant you a lifestyle where you, and oftentimes your family will get to rub elbows with the ultra wealthy and the country's most powerful titans of business and industry. This career choice also has the benefit of sheltering you, and extending legal protection that covers you from the responsibilities of your actions. The article below looks at the benefits of becoming a "public servant" if you have the stomach for it.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/01/encourage-your-children-to-become.html
You'd be better off asking why all these things which every worker deserves, have been removed by corporations who refuse to pay their employees a living wage, and who refuse to cover every employee with benefits.
And have you figured out why gov jobs still come with benefits and pensions? Yes, that's right, labour unions. Organized labour is the foundation that a middle class is built on.
Yet another article proving what I've said for years: BIflation is here, it's queer, get used to it.
Worthless college majors: fine arts, criminal justice, fashion design, gender studies, women's studies, hospitality management, philosophy, theater, creative writing, dance, film, photography...
I told my children that "you better work hard and do something useful because there a bunch of youngsters in Asia on your heels".
Yep, along with computer science, radiology, mathematics, structural engineering, organic chemistry, law, physics, etc... The oasis over yonder we call STEM is a bunch of horseshit.. Unless you happen to get a job in Palo Alto. Wait until the H1C chatter starts going around the horn again in congress - for healthcare workers. You can almost put a fork in that field right now - but it STILL isn't safe from the corporatocratic oligarchy. If it can be done at home, or in an office for that matter, it can be done for 10 bucks a day.
I say a lot of that crap is rote memorization - we need CREATIVITY along with SCIENCE. We've all heard the script on the other end of the customer care call - there's NOBODY to talk to anymore. Getting service is like doing your own root-canal! If it isn't WATSON diagnosing your illnesses, it's going to be somebody making 2 bucks a day (double the average peon wage). We need ALL learning - music, art, theater, string theory, database design, etc. Fuck being the good little machine. But you see, this isn't going to happen - ergo - collapse.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_322.10.asp
Not many are studying CS or engineering. Most are studying psychology and social sciences. Its not that either psychology or humanities pay more today.
So the argument that its H1B thats causing lower enrollment in STEM doesnt hold any water.
This article is also a serious warning. Even less money is going into this system and the greedy vultures circling wanting to "privatize" Social Security, thus draining employer and employees pockets and dumping the money into the offshored multinationals. The sooner you can find something to do that others might want to trade and barter for the more secure you will be. And unless you have relatives with extra room you may be persuing your new careers in the equivalent of a covered wagan. Think you'll get by with emergeny stored food? Take a look at Costco's online emergency food section and I can assure you it has been decimated, probably just by the ebola scare. Learn, and do it as fast as you can, how people lived around 1900. Take a peek at the 1900 US Census and be educated...
It doesn't matter what they do with social security. If you're under 45, you will never see a dime. It would have been better to get paid 15% more instead of handing it over to the government to provide for your retirement. As usual, it was a ponzi scheme and they stole it all.
Like you would ever get that 15% back in your paycheck. Any cut to FICA withholdings will go straight into the CEO's pocket and you know it.
There are places in the world where people work long and hard and wages don't come close. Their homes and so on reflect this.
Funny thing is, they have homes and businesses and they own them. May not be fancy, but don't owe a pile of coin.
I live in Canada. Meat is crazy expensive in my mind, yet I know ranchers who had to get out of the business because their livestok wan't making them money. We sell oil to the US whre Americans can buy a gallon a lot cheaper than we can.
Somehwere there is a layer of leeches sucking the blood out of the economy.
i guess the electricity cost in defrosting your cattle during winter would be a major expense in Canada
somewhere there is a layer of leeches sucjing the blood out of the economy. I would say so, yes. Or it might be excessive .gov regulation; how much of the gas price is taxes?
The article is also a serious warning. There's less going into the system and employer and employees will see it "privatized" and all that lovely money siphoned off to offshore multinationals. Take a long look at the 1900 US Census and become educated...They were recovering from the Long Depression. Look it up.
Income is over-rated when you "work for Barack".
Those who look closely understand that it is not the 1% at the top stealing the icing off the cake, but the much smaller .1% or .01% that are skewing the numbers and overreaching.
I contend the biggest problem is the massive growth in crony capitalism and corruption in Washington. Much of this can be attributed to the ability of those in control "changing the rules" and positioning themselves to benefit at every corner. In our busy and complex world we have found it impossible to watch all the moving parts. More on how this leads to collapse in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-empires-collapse.html
yeah...I make about that after the imperial federal/state/local government loots its "fair share"
nothing happens until something is sold. if there is nobody to buy the price gives way before production does which amplifies the reaction. that is what already happened in 2007-08. there is no doubt the chart says the economy is lifting off that level but nowhere near the growth rate required to return to 2006.
it has been so long since everyone was screaming their solutions into the wilderness while the fed engineered the mother of all bailouts for themselves. the two most quickly discarded solutions was actually buying out individual mortgages to bail people and banks out with the recovery act(sandl disaster) "bad bank" idea. the other idea was the literal helicopter drop that was actually toyed with with the ss tax give back. dumbasses just need to exempt the first 50 grand for a family of four and print the remainder to "provide liquidity" for the bond market. lol!
i'm going to need depends if i can still laugh when i am old.
'American paychecks shrank last year, just-released data show, further eroding the public’s purchasing power, which is so vital to economic growth.'
And yet the politicians scratch their little heads trying to work out why oh why don't consumers spend more, we keep throwing hundreds of Billions of dollars at the banks and wall street, everybody should have lots of money, one of those unsolvable conundrums I suppose.
And think of all the trillions we've blown over seas fighting these dumb wars to satisfy the hubris of our so-called leaders who are unfit for office to begin with.
Cut everyone a check and be done with it.
Wall Street and the debt mongers of DC have squandered capitalism itself. Now we have total anarchy as a result.
If you're still hungry or homeless its not because you didn't have the money to begin with.
You can make more money on Social Security Disability.
The solution is obvious. More Americans need to stop being poor. Or they need to get rich. One or the other.....
Just end the era of financialization. Tell everyone you know to sell all the bubble stocks they hold (AMZN, NFLX, LNKD, SCTY, ETC) and raise physical cash outside the banking system. Sell OOM puts on gold for the value of the underlying that you raise in cash. Mainly sell puts on gold and liquidate whatever financial asset you need to sell to buy gold. The financial asset ponzi is very close to the endgame. You will want cash and you will want gold.
My sister-in-law makes unreportable CASH flashing her tits on some trash website. Last week she made $11.20 mostly from drunken college students that thought they were buying a car on eBay with their parents credit card. She's so ugly even the IRS sends back her mail unopened.
Sorry folks, just trying to font run the spammers who post here once in a while.
By the time I'm out of college and ready to work, at the rate things are going, I'll have to pay to go to work.
There are some people who do have to pay to work. It's called indentured servitude, and it is practiced today in this country.
Travled enough to Brasil and others places and it isn't so much that Brasil is suddenly become some kind of paradise - it is just that the US keeps standing in motion at best and in many cases backwards the past 15 years. We won't end up quite like Brasil because of historical reasons and legacy transfer programs. We are going to end up with an 20/80 society where the 20% live pretty well and affluent (and mostly in select MSA urban regions surrounded by pockets of real poverty) and the rest generally really struggle with the bottom dying off depending upon how muh we cut the social net at the bottom as inevitably we are going to have to do.
Yet Americans continue to vote in the same war-mongering idiots who yap about supply-side BS/benefits of globalization and are whores for the US Chamber of Commerce. There are a few exceptions in the GOP and Democratic who at least occasionally try to challenge the status quo but they are just increasingly either aging fringe politicans (eg Bernie Sanders), phonies (eg Elizabeth Warren), or people who won't really rattle the cage (eg Rand Paul).
I was listening to a financial show on the radio today and heard a guy asking for advice. He had $260,000 in student loans and worked for the government, but the job he really wanted required a higher degree which would require an additional $50,000 in student loans. He paid, now get this, $2000/month on his current student loans. The radio show host kept his composure and told the guy to keep his current job.
$2000/month on student loans...WTF!!!!!!
Fool has to stay with a .gov or .edu job that will qualify him for forgiveness after 10 years on the job with on time payment. Refi that loan out to 30 years, pay for 10 years and then be done with it.
Or just leave the country.
Solution: Provide services for upper classes like federal employees who average over $100,000 a year and public school teachers who average $53,000 per year. Save up enough to become emanicipated and start the American dream from the beginning. Like Mountain Men on the History Channel
Tyler.Great fan of the site,been on board for a few years. I make a point to recommend it to many people with at minimum half a brain. The point here is that the goldprice.com add is layin(95%) on top of your page to the (point were I have to be down voted for not using add block plus blah blah blah) Thanks
I can't see most of the Banzai art anymore,because of the ads. They have totally taken over the screen, leaving only a thin space for text and comments.
Don't click
drink kool-aid
It isn't even just wages, it is if you can get a job at all. I have a relative in New England in her 60s who has been working under the table as a home health aide. She is hard working, but destitute due to being a life-long spendthrift. She quit her last job since the gigantically obese incontinent diabetic women whom she tended would not stop gorging herself on candy even while she tended her, and she worried she would collapse on her watch (she is an extremely responsible person in most ways).
So, she signed onto an agency; she figured she should work on the books. But they are coming up with nothing; there are no openings at all. She is being driven back to the underground economy.
The difference between suffering and doing okay for her, is the $600/month she was taking home working for the obese client. Yellen's net worth is about $8 million. Zuckerberg, Dimon, Buffett - it does make you think. Divide their assets by $600/month - how many people are there like relative . . . God, I'm thinking like a poor person here.
Yes, I do send her money but I cannot make up for the lack of a job.
The solution is simple - outlaw jobs. Declare employees and emloyers terrorists. Execute them.
Then everyone will be self employed. They can then set their own pay, benefits and working conditions to suit themselves.
Everyone can be their own boss! What could possibly be wrong with that?
50% makes less than 28K... yet this country sells millions of $600+ iphone 6.
crazy but yeah most ppl will find a way to have an iphone...
really sad ....
we have been hiring ppl who have lost jobs at other places and they all have had to take huge pay cuts...
most now are making 1/2 of what they once made...
tough times for a lot of ppl...