Every read a statistic that leaves you flabbergasted and dismayed? Well, I just read one that makes me shit on myself, which is flabbergasted squared plus two. It just so happens that, as of 2006 (so it doesn’t even count the most recent economic sodomy perpetrated upon us), 1/4 of Americans who were born into the middle class in the fifties and sixties will fall into the lower class or poverty as adults. While it is equal across race for women, it’s not equal across race for men, so that 38% of black men born into the middle class will slip into hell poverty, while around 21% of white and Latino men will loose their socio-economic status.
The middle class is defined as people who fall between the 30% and 70% percentile of income distribution. The median income in the US is $46,326. Poverty is defined as “$22,350 (total yearly income) for a family of four”. There are now 46.2 MILLION people in the US living in poverty. Obviously, this does not count those families of four who make twice as much … say even as much as a whopping $45,000. We can only assume you light your cigars with $100 bills when you are rolling in that kind of wealth! Saving for retirement and sending your kids to college must be a breeze!
What does this disparity look like? It looks like this:
My dad rose to upper middle class from abject poverty. My brother the fireman, and his wife who is a teacher, are clinging to middle class by their fingernails. I married a guy whose salary allows us to be middle class, and I am grateful. My brother the paramedic, who works 50+ hours a week, and his wife, who also works her ass off, make below the poverty line. My parents give generously to make sure car payments and whatnot are met. What do people do if they don’t have a Dad who can help? There is no social safety net outside of the family anymore. What happened? Simple: most of our manufacturing jobs went overseas and “accounting for inflation, median wages for men between 30 and 50 dropped 27 percent—to $33,000 a year— from 1969 to 2009, according to an analysis by Michael Greenstone, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professor who was chief economist for Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.” Meanwhile, the top 10% grow steadily richer. The US now hovers between Jamaica and Cameroon in terms of income inequality.
This kind of information makes me really depressed, y’all.
I was reading somewhere that the latest American census recorded 1 in 6 Americans as living below the poverty line but that the true number was more like 1 in 4. Every day I read the headlines and I fear deeply for the average person there (not that I think Canada is all that far behind, just that we have (for now) a few more safety nets and a few more opportunities for people).
Uh, yeah. Kinda not news around here.
Julie
Yes, in these charts one may see clearly here that the Republicans are on the right track — that helping the rich get richer is really and truly helping the economy, providing good jobs, and without their astronomical growth in riches, the country will go right on down the toilet.
Oh, wait, I know, those folks at the bottom of the heap are just friggin’ LAZY. I mean, so what if your brother is a paramedic working 50+ hrs a week — he probably sits around half the time on the job, waiting for people to have heart attacks, etc.
(I am SURE the Republicans will have an “appropriate” explanation why such a valuable occupation is so poorly paid…. I personally think it is because of the fact that half of the people they transport have no insurance, so the cost has to be recovered through crappy pay for EMTs, so that the rich owners of the services can continue their astronomical climb into the economic stratosphere. But, hey, that’s just my humble opinion.)
What I cannot reconcile (among the many things that I cannot reconcile) is where the folks who spout that the US is a Christian country, but where they are willing to turn their faces away from others in trouble, and where they balk at seeing to the welfare of others (i.e., kill the social support net). They’ll tithe for their church to support orphanages in Bangladesh, but not for their fellow Americans.
What is WRONG WITH US????? And when will we WAKE UP???????
Color me bitter….
preaching to the choir, Fokker, you’re preaching to the choir.
My father-in-law was complaining about the costs of his medications and, when I commented that at least he could afford them unlike many in this county, proceeded to tell me that we don’t really have poor people here. They can afford cars and televisions and refrigerators (!) so they aren’t really poor.
Jesus wept.