Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Astounding Unemployment/Wages Misery Coming To Light

One out of every 34 Americans who earned wages in 2008 earned absolutely nothing -- not one cent -- in 2009.
The stunning figure was released earlier this month by the Social Security Administration, but apparently went unreported until it appeared today on Tax.com in a column by Pulitzer Prize-winning tax reporter David Cay Johnston.
It's not just every 34th earner whose financial situation has been upended by the financial crisis. Average wages, median wages, and total wages have all declined -- except at the very top, where they leaped dramatically, increasing five-fold.
Johnston writes that while the number of Americans earning more than $50 million fell from 131 in 2008 to 74 in 2009, those that remained at the top increased their income from an average of $91.2 million in 2008 to almost $519 million.
The wealth is astounding, says Johnston. "That's nearly $10 million in weekly pay!... These 74 people made as much as the 19 million lowest-paid people in America, who constitute one in every eight workers."
Johston sees the depressing figures as a result of government tax policies maintained by politicians with an eye on re-election, not good government:
It is the latest, and in this case quite dramatic, evidence that our economic policies in Washington are undermining the nation as a whole.We have created a tax system that changes continually as politicians manipulate it to extract campaign donations. We have enabled ''free trade'' that is nothing of the sort, but rather tax-subsidized mechanisms that encourage American manufacturers to close their domestic factories, fire workers, and then use cheap labor in China for products they send right back to the United States. This has created enormous downward pressure on wages, and not just for factory workers.
More Here..

New Study Says Cost of Health Reform Subsidies Could Far Exceed Previous Estimates

A new study by the Lewin Group estimates that 28.6 million Americans will be eligible for a federal subsidy to purchase health insurance beginning in 2014 at a projected cost to tax payers in excess of $110 billion. This estimate is dramatically higher (578%) than the cost of these subsidies forecast by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prior to the bill’s enactment into law..more at link above

5 comments:

  1. Sounds insignificant. One out of 34 make nothing from their wages? That's not a lot at all. So what? A minority of a minority of people in the country don't get extra money to spend.

    Let's say of the 300 million Americans, perhaps 100 million are minors, 100 million are sick, old, or retarded, and the other 50-100 million work or are looking for work. That would mean at the most only three million people don't get recreation cash. That's very low.

    So everyone else, the 97 million, dropped down by maybe 500 bucks. If someone making 30 thousand a year prior to the depression now only makes 29,500 they won't be effected at all really. They might not get as much candy bars in their groceries throughout the year.

    Now with that, try not to flame me if that's far out there. I don't read graphs well, have a job, and nor am I real world practical. All it shows is a bunch of orange bars representing objects only a tiny group of people use at all. Not to mention the percentages add up to multiple hundreds, so... it doesn't seem to make much sense. Unless I'm missing something?

    Do the percentages mean, for the object, how much of the person's income it takes up? That's the only way I can make sense of that. And is that from 2009 to 2010? Can someone expound that for me please?

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  2. the chart on inflation in the real world has a different source than the article posted above.

    If it helps ?
    Chart of the Week: Inflation in the Real World

    By Jake Weber, Editor, The Casey Report

    As is often the case, there is a big difference between what the government statistics are reporting and what’s going on in the real world. According to the most recent inflation reading published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), consumer prices grew at an annual rate of just 1.1% in August.

    The government has an incentive to distort CPI numbers, for reasons such as keeping the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security payments low. While there’s no question that you may be able to get a good deal on a new car or a flat-screen TV today, how often are you really buying these things? When you look at the real costs of everyday life, prices have risen sharply over the last year. For simplicity’s sake, consider the cash market prices on some basic commodities.



    On average, our basic food costs have increased by an incredible 48% over the last year (measured by wheat, corn, oats, and canola prices). From the price at the pump to heating your stove, energy costs are up 23% on average (heating oil, gasoline, natural gas). A little protein at dinner is now 39% higher (beef and pork), and your morning cup of coffee with a little sugar has risen by 36% since last October.

    You probably aren’t buying new linens or shopping for copper piping at the hardware store every day, but I included these items to show the inflationary pressures on some other basic materials that will likely affect consumer prices down the road.
    http://www.caseyresearch.com/editorial/3791?ppref=ZAC175ED1010A

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  3. sounds serious. middle class is getting worse as wages are reduced to nothing

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  4. the commodities index started to sky mid 2009 and this yr with the QE's and retailers have held back some on price hikes but now have started to pass it on, since the summer the commodities have really risen and that price hike has yet to hit the store shelves, a front run on nov QE round...print print bernanke make the elite 100's speculations pay off

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  5. 10:06 pm, perhaps if you become one of those 1 in 34 who make no wages, you will come to the realization that it is VERY significant.
    Based on your comments, comprehension and reasoning abilities you might want to consider becoming a politician...or are you already one?

    ReplyDelete

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