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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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So how the fuck do they still raise my property taxes in (nj) over 7% ? year in year out ,these fuckin' unions are bleading us dry ! get me the fuck out !
Once again this story is skewed a bit. The data they are pulling from is only from W-2s. Now I would be above the average. However, my earns are not in that total because they are business earnings from self-employment. So, you need to keep in mind that every business owner like me who files a schedule C or is an owner in a partnership is not in the total. Moreover, S Corp owners have a huge incentive to have their W-2 wage as low as possible because they pay less in employment taxes that way. There are 4-5 MILLION S corps and most of the owners would get a w-2. Also, there could be more than one owner. I do taxes. ALL OF THE OWNERS pay less to themselves on a W-2 then they actually take home. I usually force them to take at least 50% of the total income on a W-2 to protect from audit.
So, to end this thread, only EMPLOYEES are included here.
I agree that to be accrate th ed data should also reflect self employment but you wo uld b ed shocked at how little, if anything, most self employe dc individuals make. Not sur ed the results would look muxh different.
Anyone who who chooses to stay on wage income their entire life (YES, it IS a choice) is a self-made wage slave and deserves to live tax-drained paycheck to tax-drained paycheck. There is still NO country in the world in which it is easier to escape wage slavery than the US, in spite of the obama regime. But you better act quickly because the socialist income-redistributing thieving parasites are gaining power and the door to opportunity is closing fast.
We need to stop giving special tax treatment to capital gains. It needs to be taxed like ordinary income.
The real bottom line is if you are a average Joe selling your labor you are screwed. In this financialized econony being in the rentier class is where its at. Keep on sending them profits to the top.....
Thank You
Signed
Rentier
Learn Spanish
Much more profitable to grow tits & a pussy.
This data shows how far off the track our economy really is. In my local paper this morning (Minneapolis StarTribune) there's a story about the local Community College's Culinary Arts program. It's very popular and by all accounts, very good. But they're going to close it down because a 2-yr. Associcate's Degree costs $11,500 or so, and graduates earn a median wage of $12.50. Median, not rock-bottom starting wage. There's no way in hell anybody making $12.50/hr. can pay back $11,500, so the Federal Government is going to classify Minneapolis Community and Technical College as one of those profiteering diploma mills and exclude them from the federal Student Loan program, because 45% of the program's graduates go into default on their student loans.
See, a useful occupation can't earn any money in this economy because all the money is sucked up by Finance. And Finance drives the entire education industry. From the article, here are median wages for graduates of our local Community Colllege, by profession:
Culinary arts $12.23
Welding and metal fabrication $14.42
Air traffic control $14.98
Accounting $15.37
Dental assistant $15.82
Law enforcement $16.01
Electroneurodiagnostic technology $20.71
Nursing $25.60
Air traffic control $14.98? Fer Serious? Why, yes indeed, I will secure and my safety belt and bear in mind that the nearest exit may be behind me. Cops at $16.01/hr.? No wonder they're going feral and "living off the fat of the land," turned loose to forage.
I imagine that graduates of a $200,000 MBA program make a median hourly wage well above $14.98, and do a helluva a lot less good and important work.
When actual work at a useful profession can't support a person, the economy is utterly uck-fayed, driven by perverse incentives, and doomed, I must say.
Not to mention, every transaction is so heavily burdened by costs of finance, everything useful becomes unaffordable. We actually have Sen. Al Franken running for re-election here in Minnesota, airing ads featuring a young couple with a baby and college loan debt. He says we have to support efforts to help them pay off their college debt so they can start saving to pay their baby's college loan debt. No thought to having people earn an actual living from doing actual things that need to be done; No, we just need to make sure everybody feeds the Finance Beast.
This thing's done. It's just about waiting for that inevitable point when people quit showing up, quit forking over their meager earnings to cover carrying costs. Sure, the Federal Government can make student loans non-dischargeable through bankruptcy, and eventually make bankruptcy the exclusive province of the elites. And then what? You still can't get blood from a stone. Debtor's prisons? How much more can we spend incarcerating people? The State of California shows what happens to your finances when you do that. So we'll outsource the costs of Debtor's Prison incarceration onto the debtors themselves, the way self-checkout outsources clerk jobs tot the customers? Then what? Everybody with college loan debt has to work for free for Uncle for ten years before they can work for themselves?
Until our economy focuses on paying people for productive work, nothing anybody says about the economy is to be taken seriously. And I'm afraid it's going to have to collapse and all private debt will have to be wiped clean before that will happen. Government intrusion is an effect of the metastasis of Finance, not the cause. Government debt is a fraction of all the unproductive private debt, and nothing good can happen until all of it goes away. That'll require the Elites to give up their accumulated advantage, so it isn't going to happen voluntarily.
"very few of our leaders seem to care" - those leaders are causing it by their foolish and unwise policies. Those leaders are THE problem!
None of this is true.
50 percent or more of the American people receive Gov. benefits that total more then 55,000 dollars a year so suck it.
I hear this statistic all the time. If it's true, it requires a very elastic definition of "Gov. benefits." Like what, use of the roads? And even if it's true, it's beside the point. The point is that working for a living does not provide enough income to live independently, and it used to. All those mythical Welfare Queens, even if they are real, live like slaves in shitty circumstances not one of us would truly submit to.
When people claim to be jealous of those on Gov't. Assistance, I know they are fools. That ain't living. It's bare subsistence. The fact that somebody on welfare can get an i-Phone doesn't mean you want to live like that. I use a flip-phone, and have no debt and owe nobody any explanation for what I'm doing. I could actually support my lifestyle of $55,000/yr., though thank God I don't have to because I know very well what living on that level of income is like and I don't want to do it anymore.
When you're on welfare, you have to submit every aspect of your life to a bureaucrat on demand. Sure, you can scam the system, but that requires more work than actually working does. And you make yourself a slave, for a paltry standard of living. Nobody would do it who actually has a choice.
I'll help you out because you my be a little ignorant when it comes to anything outside of your world. My girlfriend lives in a nice apt. complex near Boston. The rent is 2000 a month plus you have to pay for utilizes. The complex is required to keep a certain percentage for Sec. 8 people or as you put it welfare queens. So that's between 20 -30 thousand a year just in rent for free. They get cars phones and medical so these people are living like kings.
When these welfare queens go on the system they now how to work it. Most of these people work under the table and collect free money.
Everybody has a choice dummy you can work hard and get ahead or be a nasty leach on society. And by the sounds of it you chose LEACH.
I won't hold your lack of articulation or financial skills against you.
The word you're looking for, by the way, is spelled "LEECH." That is, if you're referring to the little water-dwelling bloodsucking critters.
When I was growing up, both my parents spent a few years completely unable to work due to disabilities. They're better now, thanks, though now they're old and completely broke. My siblings and I now have to support them in addition to our own families.
Like the rest of my brothers and sisters, I started working part-time when I was 10 years old, and full-time when I was 15. Minimum wage and child-labor laws don't apply to agricultural work. Ag work, you may not know as a city boy, goes on 12 months a year in the North; even when it -40F.
It's not easy working 4 hours, then taking a 1-hour school bus ride, going to school for 8 hours (we did that back then, taking the bus home another hour, working 4 more hours, doing homework, and then getting up to do it again. But we did it because we had to and we didn't complain because it wouldn't make any difference if we did. And now, 35 years later, I have to say every task or job to which I've ever set myself has been a helluva lot easier, and more lucrative.
By the way, did you know that every dollar I earned was subtracted, dollar-for-dollar, from what my family received in welfare benefits? Of course you did, you being an expert on Welfare 'n' shit.
Today, I'm a corporate consultant. My siblings are today, 30+ years later, a corporate head of Legal Services, an attorney, a Veterinarian, the head of a Library system, 2 schoolteachers, a university professor, an Agricultural/Environmental engineer, and me, the black sheep of the familiy; a self-employed corporate consultant. Only the schoolteachers, the professor and I average less than 6-figures. We've more than paid back every penny several times over that we ever got on welfare.
The "Welfare Queens" aren't getting the $2000 a month, "dummy." The landlords are. Howzabout that? Who is really being subsidized here, "dummy?"
If living on welfare at the mercy of social workers, bureaucrats, landlords, the cops, and every predator out there is your idea of "living like kings," you, my friend, are more than welcome to it. I have actually walked in those shoes and there is nothing I would not do to avoid ever living like that again, or having my wife and children be forced to live like that. Contemplate that for a moment. Having lived like that, there is NOTHING I would not do to avoid doing it again.
You wouldn't recognize what the F*** you're talking about if it were humping your leg.
I handed out welfare. You are WRONG in your numbers. VERY WRONG.
Of course, its called redistribution of wealth. What part of redistribution don't you understand?
Many people probably do make $28,000 or less. But in this article there is no mention of the $1 trillion + underground economy - people working for cash, etc. Its only been a couple of times that I've seen it mentioned in the past few years as how people have gotten adequately by during such a bad economy. Meanwhile, the idea of increasing the minimum wage gets propogandized into our heads.
$50K to raise a middle class family of 4? LMMFAO. Yeah, OK? Just don't have ANY unforseen medical expenses EVER and don't expect nutritious food or much in the way of personal entertainment like an occasional movie or dinner out and $50K should do nicely. What a fucking joke.....
I'm in the 35K or less bracket. It sucks. But there are no opportunities to better myself in Wasilla, AK. All that stuff about North Slope jobs in Alaska...crap. Utter crap. If you don't know someone well placed, you'll never get in. And even if you do, they'll fire you for the slightest, tiniest mistake in safety or eco-friendly protocols.
This country is out of control.
Nuf said ...