Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog [9],
The mainstream media is not telling you this, but the truth is that most Americans are steadily getting poorer. The middle class is being absolutely eviscerated, and poverty is soaring to unprecedented heights [10]. The fact that 90 percent of the population is constantly sliding downhill is not good for our society. The United States is supposed to be a land of opportunity with a vibrant free market system that enables average people to make better lives for themselves.
Unfortunately, free enterprise is being strangled to death [11] in the United States today. Entrepreneurs and small business are being pounded into oblivion by rules, regulations, red tape and oppressive levels of taxation [12]. At the same time, millions of jobs have been shipped out of the United States by corporate giants and sent to countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages. All of this has happened under both Democrats and Republicans. Meanwhile, wealth and power continue to become even more heavily concentrated in the hands of big government and big corporations.
Our founding fathers warned that we should not allow such large concentrations of wealth and power, because they tend to funnel the rewards of society into the hands of a select few. We need to change the rules of the game so that entrepreneurs, small businesses and average workers can thrive in this country once again. If big government and big corporations continue to gobble up even more wealth and power, the wealth inequality that we see right now will only get even worse.
The following are 22 facts that prove that the bottom 90 percent of America is systematically getting poorer...
#1 According to the Pew Research Center, the top 7 percent of all U.S. households own 63 percent [13] of all the wealth in the country.
#2 Between 2009 and 2011, the wealth of the bottom 93 percent of all Americans declined by 4 percent [14], while the wealth of the top 7 percent of all Americans increased by 28 percent [14].
#3 On average, households in the top 7 percent have 24 times as much wealth [13] as households in the bottom 93 percent.
#4 In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined [15].
#5 According to the Economic Policy Institute, the wealthiest one percent of all American households have 288 times [16] the amount of wealth that the average middle class American family does on average.
#6 According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined [17].
#7 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom one-third of all Americans combined [18].
#8 According to the U.S. Census Bureau [19], the middle class is taking home a smaller share of the overall income pie than has ever been recorded before.
#9 In the United States today, corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high [20], but wages as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time low [20].
#10 In 1980, CEOs at S&P 500 companies made 42 times as much as their employees did on average. Today, CEOs at S&P 500 companies make 354 times [21] as much as their employees do on average. In fact, there are many CEOs that make more than 1000 times [22] what the average employees in their companies make.
#11 According to a report recently issued by the Pew Research Center [23], Americans over the age of 65 have 47 times as much wealth as Americans under the age of 35 on average.
#12 U.S. families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent [24].
#13 Back in 2007, about 28 percent [25] of all working families were considered to be among "the working poor". Today, that number is up to 32 percent [25] even though our politicians tell us that the economy is supposedly recovering.
#14 At this point, one out of every four [26] American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.
#15 Today, the United States actually has a higher percentage [27] of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
#16 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs [28] for low paying jobs. 60 percent [29] of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent [29] of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
#17 As I mentioned yesterday [30], the homeownership rate in America is now at its lowest level in nearly 18 years [31].
#18 The United States now ranks 93rd [32] in the world in income inequality.
#19 Approximately one out of every five households [33] in the United States is now on food stamps.
#20 The number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 17 million [16] in the year 2000 to more than 47 million [34] today.
#21 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans [35] are either "poor" or "low income".
#22 At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% [36] of all the wealth in the United States.
Even if your income just stays the same, you are still getting poorer because inflation is a tax [37] that is constantly chipping away at the value of every single dollar that you own. The cost of everything that we buy on a regular basis (food, gas, health insurance, etc.) is constantly going up, and if your income is not keeping pace that means that you are getting poorer.
That is just one reason why the Federal Reserve system is so insidious. They are killing the middle class with inflation. For much more on the Federal Reserve and why it should be abolished, please see this article: "10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve [38]".
So if most Americans are getting poorer, then why aren't our politicians doing something to fix it?
Well, the sad truth of the matter is that the big corporations fund the campaigns of our corrupt politicians. They know that the candidate that raises the most money almost always wins, and so it provides an incentive for our politicians to be very good to those that have the money.
Plus, many of our politicians are way too busy having a good time to be bothered with doing anything for us. Take Barack Obama for example. According to The Telegraph [39], Barack Obama has spent twice as much time playing golf and vacationing as he has on attending economic meetings...
In an analysis of the presidential diary and newspaper reports [40], the Government Accountability Institute found that Mr Obama has spent 976 hours since his January 2009 election on holiday and playing golf.
In contrast, he has only spent 474.4 hours in economic meetings.
"As a government watchdog group, we just tabulate the numbers and let others decide how to interpret them," said Peter Schweizer, president of GAI, which compiled the report.
But this is a problem that is not going away. The bottom 90 percent of the country is systematically getting poorer, and if this continues it will inevitably result in massive social problems. The video posted below [41] does a great job of graphically illustrating the crisis that we are facing...