Earnie Shavers
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
It is cheap. Very cheap.
this (i want to say it hovered around $1 in 2001, at least it did in memphis)it's also 4x more than it was 10 years ago. i understand that it's cheaper over here, but it ain't like it used to be.
and that's a good thing. far fewer SUVs clogging up the roads these days.
Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans—nearly 1 in 2—have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.
Many middle-class Americans are dropping below the low-income threshold—roughly $45,000 for a family of four—because of pay cuts, a forced reduction of work hours or a spouse losing a job. Housing and child-care costs are consuming up to half of a family's income.
States in the South and West had the highest shares of low-income families, including Arizona, New Mexico and South Carolina, which have scaled back or eliminated aid programs for the needy. By raw numbers, such families were most numerous in California and Texas, each with more than 1 million.
About 97.3 million Americans fall into a low-income category, commonly defined as those earning between 100 and 199% of the poverty level, based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty. Together with the 49.1 million who fall below the poverty line and are counted as poor, they number 146.4 million, or 48% of the U.S. population. That's up by 4 million from 2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed poverty measure. The new measure of poverty takes into account medical, commuting and other living costs. Doing that helped push the number of people below 200% of the poverty level up from 104 million, or 1 in 3 Americans, that was officially reported in September.
Broken down by age, children were most likely to be poor or low-income — about 57%—followed by seniors over 65. By race and ethnicity, Hispanics topped the list at 73%, followed by blacks, Asians and non-Hispanic whites.
The majority of low-income families—62%—spent more than one-third of their earnings on housing, surpassing a common guideline for what is considered affordable. By some census surveys, child-care costs consume close to another one-fifth.
Paychecks for low-income families are shrinking. The inflation-adjusted average earnings for the bottom 20% of families have fallen from $16,788 in 1979 to just under $15,000, and earnings for the next 20% have remained flat at $37,000. In contrast, higher-income brackets had significant wage growth since 1979, with earnings for the top 5% of families climbing 64% to more than $313,000.
The following are 50 economic numbers from 2011 that are almost too crazy to believe....
#1 A staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.
#2 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be "low income" or impoverished.
#3 If the number of Americans that "wanted jobs" was the same today as it was back in 2007, the "official" unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to 11 percent.
#4 The average amount of time that a worker stays unemployed in the United States is now over 40 weeks.
#5 One recent survey found that 77 percent of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers.
#6 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.
#7 Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.
#8 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006. Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.
#9 A Gallup poll from earlier this year found that approximately one out of every five Americans that do have a job consider themselves to be underemployed.
#10 According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.
#11 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
#12 Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.
#13 One recent survey found that one out of every three Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.
#14 The Federal Reserve recently announced that the total net worth of U.S. households declined by 4.1 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2011 alone.
#15 According to a recent study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.
#16 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.
#17 The U.S. Postal Service has lost more than 5 billion dollars over the past year.
#18 In Stockton, California home prices have declined 64 percent from where they were at when the housing market peaked.
#19 Nevada has had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation for 59 months in a row.
#20 If you can believe it, the median price of a home in Detroit is now just $6000.
#21 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.
#22 New home construction in the United States is on pace to set a brand new all-time record low in 2011.
#23 As I have written about previously, 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 are now living with their parents.
#24 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
#25 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#26 One study found that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
#27 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.
#28 The United States spends about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.
#29 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit for 2011 will be 558.2 billion dollars.
#30 The retirement crisis in the United States just continues to get worse. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.
#31 Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.
#32 According to a study that was just released, CEO pay at America's biggest companies rose by 36.5% in just one recent 12 month period.
#33 Today, the "too big to fail" banks are larger than ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.
#34 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.
#35 According to an analysis of Census Bureau data done by the Pew Research Center, the median net worth for households led by someone 65 years of age or older is 47 times greater than the median net worth for households led by someone under the age of 35.
#36 If you can believe it, 37 percent of all U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 35 have a net worth of zero or less than zero.
#37 A higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty (6.7%) than has ever been measured before.
#38 Child homelessness in the United States is now 33 percent higher than it was back in 2007.
#39 Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent.
#40 Sadly, child poverty is absolutely exploding all over America. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4% of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1% of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6% of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.
#41 Today, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
#42 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.
#43 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.
#44 Right now, spending by the federal government accounts for about 24 percent of GDP. Back in 2001, it accounted for just 18 percent.
#45 For fiscal year 2011, the U.S. federal government had a budget deficit of nearly 1.3 trillion dollars. That was the third year in a row that our budget deficit has topped one trillion dollars.
#46 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.
#47 Amazingly, the U.S. government has now accumulated a total debt of 15 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.
#48 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
#49 The U.S. national debt has been increasing by an average of more than 4 billion dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.
#50 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.
#44 Right now, spending by the federal government accounts for about 24 percent of GDP. Back in 2001, it accounted for just 18 percent.
#45 For fiscal year 2011, the U.S. federal government had a budget deficit of nearly 1.3 trillion dollars. That was the third year in a row that our budget deficit has topped one trillion dollars.
#47 Amazingly, the U.S. government has now accumulated a total debt of 15 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.
I just want to know which industries have the growth potential to reverse a trend towards inequality on that scale, in a country the size of ours.
I just want to know which industries have the growth potential to reverse a trend towards inequality on that scale, in a country the size of ours.
I'm sorry sue4u2
Energy.
Look what North Dakota and western Pennsylvania are doing in this "jobless" recovery. Dangerous but good paying jobs in coal, refineries, pipelines, natural gas and offshore drilling. Not to mention trucking, building and servicing equipment and local jobs created in a boom. And the middle class benefits from lower energy costs.
President Solyndra sees things differently however.
Energy.
Look what North Dakota and western Pennsylvania are doing in this "jobless" recovery. Dangerous but good paying jobs in coal, refineries, pipelines, natural gas and offshore drilling. Not to mention trucking, building and servicing equipment and local jobs created in a boom. And the middle class benefits from lower energy costs.
President Solyndra sees things differently however.
The low graduation rate is presumably also relevant to another stat I saw recently, which was that students at for-profit colleges, though only about 9% of all college students, account for 44% of all student loan defaults. For-profit colleges, like community colleges, disproportionately enroll poor students seeking associate's degrees, most of whom never finish.It's also not just a burden on young people. The New York Fed's study found that only about a third of all student debt belongs to Americans under 30. Another third belongs to adults between the ages of 30 and 39. And according to one recent study, adults between the ages 35 and 49 are the fastest growing category of borrowers. Part of the reason may be that the tough job market has forced older workers back to school in order to learn new skills. But it's not clear that investment is paying off.
Americans, young and old, are turning to education in an economy that values technical skills, and has little use for a high school degree. And now they're stumbling under the weight of the debt they've incurred. It would be easy to chalk this up to the bad economy--and clearly that's playing a role--but there may be a deeper, harder-to-remedy problem at play. Simply put: Too many students don't graduate...less than 60% of US undergraduates seeking a bachelor's degree graduate within six years. Just 30% of those seeking an associate's degree finish within three years. It's an abysmal record, and it may go a long way to explaining the trouble borrowers are having paying back their loans. A few months back, the Wall Street Journal profiled a hedge fund that specializes in packaging student loans into securities for investors. The firm had found that whether a student graduated was one of the two most important predictors of if they would eventually pay back their loans. The second? Whether they graduated on time.
Fewer than half (46%) of students who enter community colleges with the goal of earning a degree or certificate have attained that goal, transferred to a baccalaureate institution, or are still enrolled 6 years later. The rates, unfortunately, are lower for Hispanic, Black, Native American, and low-income students.
Almost a third (30%) of entering students do not attend orientation; most avoid online orientation; about 90% indicate that academic planning and advising is important to them, yet less than a third of entering students report that a college advisor helped them set academic goals and create a plan for achieving them; and although a large majority of entering students are underprepared for college-level work, 76% never use tutoring services. Well into the first term, many students have almost no idea of how well or poorly they are doing academically and report a general sense of bewilderment with registration processes.
Developmental (remedial) education is all too often a burial ground for student aspirations. Getting up to speed in math and reading for some students can take 3 or more years...Among high school graduates, only 24% of those intending to go to college meet all four ACT benchmarks of college readiness in English, mathematics, reading, and science.
Too many senior college and university leaders, faculty, department chairs, and deans are ambivalent about community colleges, understanding them not as having different missions but as somehow inferior because of their open-door admissions. Community college transfer students often have to fight to have their credits recognized at baccalaureate institutions, and universities often are reluctant to share data about transfer students and their performance. This ambivalence complicates the effort to improve articulation between the two sectors and lends credence to calls for more comprehensive policy solutions at the state level.
tudents’ plans prior to college entry indicate very little understanding of employment possibilities in high-demand, high-wage fields.The disparities in employment plans versus employment demand are striking: