Great Summary of the American Dream – Top List (ZeroHedge)

[SD Transplant]

linky: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-30/death-american-dream-22-numbers

#1 The Obama administration tells us that 8.69 million Americans are “officially unemployed” and that 92.90 million Americans are considered to be “not in the labor force”. That means that more than 101 million U.S. adults do not have a job right now.

#2 One recent survey discovered that 55 percent of Americans believe that the American Dream either never existed or that it no longer exists.

#3 Considering the fact that Obama is in the White House, it is somewhat surprising that 55 percent of all Republicans still believe in the American Dream, but only 33 percent of all Democrats do.

#4 After adjusting for inflation, median household income has fallen by nearly $5,000 since 2007.

#5 After adjusting for inflation, “the median wealth figure for middle-income families” fell from $78,000 in 1983 to $63,800 in 2013.

#6 At this point, 59 percent of Americans believe that “the American dream has become impossible for most people to achieve”.

#7 In 1967, 53 percent of Americans were considered to be “middle income”. But today, only 43 percent of Americans are.

#8 For each of the past six years, more businesses have closed in the United States than have opened. Prior to 2008, this had never happened before in all of U.S. history.

#9 According to the New York Times, the “typical American household” is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.

#10 According to one recent report, 43 million Americans currently have unpaid medical debt on their credit reports.

#11 Traditionally, owning a home has been one of the key indicators that you belong to the middle class. Unfortunately, the rate of homeownership in the U.S. has now been falling for seven years in a row.

#12 According to a survey that was conducted last year, 52 percent of all Americans cannot even afford the house that they are living in right now.

#13 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the number of Americans on food stamps has gone from 32 million to 46 million.

#14 The number of Americans on food stamps has now exceeded the 46 million mark for 38 months in a row.

#15 Right now, more than one out of every five children in the United States is on food stamps.

#16 According to a Washington Post article published just recently, more than 50 percent of the children in U.S. public schools now come from low income homes. This is the first time that this has happened in at least 50 years.

#17 According to the Census Bureau, 65 percent of all children in the United States are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.

#18 In 2008, 53 percent of all Americans considered themselves to be “middle class”. But by 2014, only 44 percent of all Americans still considered themselves to be “middle class”.

#19 In 2008, 25 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket considered themselves to be “lower class”. But in 2014, an astounding 49 percent of all Americans in that age range considered themselves to be “lower class”.

#20 It is hard to believe, but an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

#21 According to one recent survey, 62 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck.

#22 According to CNN, the typical American family can only “replace 21 days of income with readily accessible funds”.

The key to the recovery of the middle class is jobs.

The truth is that without middle class jobs, it is impossible to have a middle class.

Unfortunately, more middle class jobs are being offshored, are being replaced by technology, or are being lost to a slowing economy every single day. The competition for the jobs that remain is incredibly intense.

[Anonymous]

[quote] … 8.69 million Americans are “officially unemployed” and that 92.90 million Americans are considered to be “not in the labor force”. That means that more than 101 million U.S. adults do not have a job right now.[/quote]

Amazing!

It only took one sentence for 93 million children and elderly people to become working age adults.

[spdrun]

^^^

Yep, that was a stupid metric to use. However, it doesn’t change the fact that working-age labor participation has been falling since the peak in the late 90s.

[Anonymous]

[quote=spdrun]working-age labor participation has been falling since the peak in the late 90s.[/quote]

I don’t think a world where people work less is such a bad thing.

[spdrun]

I don’t either. But what’s worrisome is that the recent trend is to longer hours, less time off, with less participation. Meaning the working world is polarizing to either jobs with unreasonable demands or no job at all. I think we can agree that that’s a bad thing.

I’d rather see higher participation but lower average annual hours.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that’s the tricky part about jobs. They come as a unit and it’s not feasible to divide it across individuals. Especially modern, “knowledge worker” jobs.

I also don’t think that has much to do with any politics or the effectiveness of any leaders. It’s just a reality of the age we live in.

[spdrun]

I disagree — there are plenty of knowledge worker jobs in countries that enforce more severe restrictions on time off and working hours. Most of the world other than the US and Asia, in fact.

People are pushed to work long hours with less time off because the law allows it. If the law didn’t permit it, the market and job descriptions would adjust.

[CA renter]

Good posts, spdrun.

[Anonymous]

[quote=spdrun]People are pushed to work long hours with less time off because the law allows it.[/quote]

Yes, we should simply pass a law that exempts the US from global economic forces.

[spdrun]

By that asinine argument, we should dump all of our environmental and workplace safety rules because we can’t compete on a global basis with the Chinese if we keep them. We’ll have a manufacturing economy again, even if you’ll be able to cut out blocks of air with a knife and have workers working in Industrial Age conditions. Like it or not, working hours and time off are health and safety issues.

[Anonymous]

[quote=spdrun]By that asinine argument, we should dump all of our environmental and workplace safety rules because we can’t compete on a global basis with the Chinese if we keep them.[/quote]

No, but we must recognize the tradeoff.

My observation is that people who work long hours choose to do so because they want to be competitive.

Labor laws make sense for hourly workers doing mechanical tasks, they don’t work so well for white-collar workers.

The salesman about to close a deal or the building architect about to meet a deadline for a bid probably don’t want the federal government telling them they have to quit before the work is done.

[FlyerInHi]

I heard that in Germany, you can’t do handyman/construction work on your house on weekends and holidays. I don’t know if it’s true or urban legend.
But I know stores close early so it’s real estate sitting idle for nothing.

[Author]

Posts