Household income falls more after recession (largest income drop in several decades)

[Cali_Democrat]

I don't think this is a surprise to people who have actually been paying attention. Record profits on Wall Street and a booming stock market after March 2009 (stock market bottom) did nothing for the average American. That's why we're seeing protests against Wall Street and the Corporatocracy. The unemployment rate is higher now than when it was during the recession.

Household income falls more after recession
Robert Pear, New York Times
Monday, October 10, 2011

Washington --

In a grim sign of the enduring nature of the economic slump, household income declined more in the two years after the recession ended than it did during the recession itself, new research has found.

Between June 2009, when the recession officially ended, and June 2011, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 6.7 percent, to $49,909, according to a study by two former Census Bureau officials. During the recession - from December 2007 to June 2009 - household income fell 3.2 percent.

...

The finding helps explain why Americans' attitudes toward the economy, the country's direction and its political leaders have continued to sour even as the economy has been growing. Unhappiness and anger have come to dominate the political scene, including the early stages of the 2012 presidential campaign.

The full 9.8 percent drop in income from the start of the recession to this June - the most recent month in the study - appears to be the largest in several decades, according to other Census Bureau data. Gordon Green Jr., who wrote the report with John Coder, called the decline "a significant reduction in the American standard of living."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/09/MNEV1LFHHK.DTL

The economy may have been "growing" after March 2009, but most of that wealth created went into the hands of the top 1%. For many Americans, their incomes have actually fallen and their standard of living has deteriorated dramaticallly. It feels like a depression.

Thankfully people are finally starting to rise up against the ruling corporations.

[ixion]

1. the 'growth' in 2009 was illusory

That is, it was on paper only, affecting only the wealthiest people. For the rest of us, this has been going on since 2007.

[Warpy]

2. The standard of living has been falling for a few decades

unless you were a person who was willing to go deeply into credit card debt to keep up with the Joneses.

The consumer economy has been on life support supplied by easy credit. Now the machine has been turned off and people are realizing it was all an illusion, that they've been screwed on wages and benefits for years and have nothing to show for it but a few broken toys and a mountain of debt.

A lot of people predicted this. They just didn't realize how long the credit spigot would be kept wide open and how much debt people would be allowed to assume before banks got nervous.

Unfortunately, that doesn't help anyone who fell for it. It also doesn't help people who saved instead of spent and find themselves out of work, too.

And that's why the 99% movement is spreading like wildfire.

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

3. my family income has gone from just under $100,000

to about $45,000, since the 2008 meltdown.

I work all the time at a job that is destroying my body, but at least I have a job. After looking for close to 2 years, I feel lucky. My husband's story is much the same.

[PSPS]

4. I stopped reading when I came to "after the recession ended"

In a grim sign of the enduring nature of the economic slump, household income declined more in the two years after the recession ended than it did during the recession itself, new research has found.

I remember this article from a few days ago. I dismiss all such articles that refer to "when the recession ended." It's just another story written by and for the 1%.

[Cali_Democrat]

5. I think "recession" is more of a technical term

If my memory serves me correctly, a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. When corporate profits and the stock market began to take off starting in March 2009, that increased GDP. But that increase in GDP had no real impact on many Americans.

[kestrel91316]

6. The recession never ended. What planet are these people on?

[sam11111]

7. "work up,...wage down" - a basic Dynamic of corporate economies

Counter-intuitive...people don't expect it.
--------------------
corporate goal is -

dollar-a-day wage, worldwide.

with one billionaire owning the entire world.
------------------

The alternative is to get all jobs from these three sources:

-1) Co-ops..can produce any and everything.
-2) WPA (permanent WPA, zero unemployment forever)

-3) regular gov jobs - teachers, road repair, cops, food inspectors, water main repair, NIH researchers, insect control, bad-business regulators, school repair, county health clinic staff...all the jobs that have been cut by the GOP.

PS. None of these three job sources have a rich owner donating gobs of cash to republican election war-chests.

Co-ops have elected managers with a salary decided by the employees.