22 Statistics That Prove the Middle Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out Existence in America

[RainDog]

Source: Business Insider

So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker ten times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new "global" labor pool.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/22-statistics-that-prove-the-middle-class-is-being-systematically-wiped-out-of-existence-in-america-2010-7

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oh, and how are those workers being treated in China? Like slaves that are LOCKED UP at night. (Raw Story, from The Asso. Press)

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0714/beijing-gating-migrant-villages/

The government calls it "sealed management." China's capital has started gating and locking some of its lower-income neighborhoods overnight, with police or security checking identification papers around the clock, in a throwback to an older style of control.

It's Beijing's latest effort to reduce rising crime often blamed on the millions of rural Chinese migrating to cities for work

[Greyhound]

1. K&R for more of that "change".

[RainDog]

2. the darwinian business model is the enemy of democracy

because a strong middle class is the bellweather of democracy.

the death of the middle class is the death of democracy and the rise of fascism.

[Omaha Steve]

3. Another K&R!

[pleah]

4. K&R yep n/t

[RainDog]

5. wiping out unions meant wiping out the middle class

this started with Reagan - and continues to this day.

[1776Forever]

6. It seems to me the DLC Dems had a lot to do with this too. It just wasn't the GOP. n/t

[RainDog]

7. I don't think my post indicated it was just Republicans

Tho any democrat or republican who currently votes against the economic interests of American citizens is a direct descendant of Ronnie Raygun - he gave birth to the bastard child of trickle down and racism.

There are very few politicians who really give a fuck about American citizens - if something benefits the majority of Americans it's just incidental. Mostly they just mouth platitudes and tell you to vote for them so that the other candidate doesn't win.

This nation has been utterly debased by the undoing of FDR's legacy.

[1776Forever]

8. I agree - I just wanted to mention them because I feel somehow betrayed by them saying they are

"new Democrats" and get away with playing with corporations! Makes me ill!

[eridani]

9. The 22 statistics

1. 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
2. 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
3. 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
4. 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
5. A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
6. 24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
7. Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
8. Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
9. For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
10. In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
11. As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
12. The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
13. Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
14. In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% as much as the average worker in the private sector.
15. The top 1% of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
16. In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
17. More than 40% of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
18. For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
19. This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
20. Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
21. Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
22. The top 10% of Americans now earn around 50% of our national income.

[RainDog]

10. thanks for posting the list n/t

[RainDog]

11. daylight kick n/t

[ck4829]

12. K&R

[No Elephants]

13. Of course! It's the plutonomy, baby! Read Parts 1 and 2 of Citibank's 2005 plutonomy memo

It's all laid out in there. You deliberately make everyone who is not rich poorer.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674234/Citigroup-Oct-16-2005-Plutonomy-Report-Part-1http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674234/Citigroup-Oct-16-2005-Plutonomy-Report-Part-1

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6674229/Citigroup-Mar-5-2006-Plutonomy-Report-Part-2

Or, if you haven't the time or patience to read all that, just read the lyrics of the Depression Era song, "Ain't We Got Fun?" as though they were gospel.

[Greyhound]

14. ..