Do you think that 2011 will be a good year for America’s middle class? Well, you might not be so optimistic after you read the 30 statistics posted below. The truth is that 2011 is going to be another crappy year for America’s middle class, and there is not a whole lot that you or I can do about it. Sadly, what we are facing as a nation is not just a short-term economic downturn. Rather, there are some very serious long-term economic trends that are absolutely ripping apart the U.S. middle class. For example, did you know that even though our population has been growing at a brisk pace we have lost about ten percent of our middle class jobs over the past decade? The vast majority of jobs that have been created have been low paying service jobs. We now have hordes of highly educated young people that are waiting tables and that are welcoming customers to Wal-Mart. Without good paying jobs there is no middle class, but today American corporations are actually creating more jobs overseas than they are inside the United States. This has helped pad the profits of the big corporate fatcats, but it has been devastating for middle class communities across the United States. Every time a factory gets closed down in America and gets set up in some other country instead, it means that the U.S. middle class is shrinking just a little bit more. The new “global economy” has been good for the bottom line of the largest U.S. corporations, it has been great for countries like China and India, but it is absolutely wiping out the U.S. middle class. (Read More...)
Retirement
In 2011 The Baby Boomers Start To Turn 65: 16 Statistics About The Coming Retirement Crisis That Will Drop Your Jaw
Do you hear that rumble in the distance? That is the Baby Boomers – they are getting ready to retire. On January 1st, 2011 the very first Baby Boomers turn 65. Millions upon millions of them are rushing towards retirement age and they have been promised that the rest of us are going to take care of them. Only there is a huge problem. We don’t have the money. It simply isn’t there. But the millions of Baby Boomers getting ready to retire are counting on that money to be there. This all comes at a really bad time for a federal government that is already flat broke and for a national economy that is already teetering on the brink of disaster. (Read More...)
10 Reasons Why Barack Obama’s “It’s Not A Stimulus” Package Is A Cruel Joke On The American People
As election season 2010 draws near, the Obama administration has finally realized that the Democrats could actually lose both the House and the Senate in November. Suddenly all Obama wants to talk about is his wonderful new plan for the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, what he is suggesting is far too little and far too late. Anything Obama is proposing now will not be passed by Congress before the upcoming elections, and that is bad news for the Democrats. The American people tend to vote based on their wallets, and right now the American people are not happy. They desperately want someone to “fix” what is wrong with the economy. Obama is running around the country trying to convince people that he is the man to restore the American Dream, but at this point the American people have less faith in his economic policies than ever. The White House is insisting that Obama’s new economic plan is not a new “stimulus package”, and that is actually true. Obama’s new plan will not stimulate much of anything. The truth is that Obama’s new economic plan is really just a cruel joke on those who are willing to have faith in Obama’s ability to somehow turn the dying U.S. economy around. Unfortunately, throwing several hundred billion more dollars at the problem is not going to do anything to fix the foundational problems that are destroying our economic system. (Read More...)
Is The U.S. Government The Last Great Source Of Middle Class American Jobs?
Once upon a time, private industry was the engine of the great American economic machine. From coast to coast, expanding industries spawned massive cities filled with optimistic Americans who were able to achieve middle class lifestyles on the good jobs that American companies were providing for them. The largest middle class in the history of the world had been created and it seemed possible for just about everyone to live the American Dream. But today all of that has changed. The private sector is being dominated by gigantic global corporations that have shown absolutely no hesitation to ship jobs overseas. Millions upon millions of good jobs have been sent to China, India and the third world and they are never coming back. Pay and benefits for middle class Americans working in private industry have been slowly eroding and are now at dangerously low levels. Meanwhile, working as a “government servant” has never been more rewarding. Today, the average government worker makes far more than the average worker in the private sector does. (Read More...)
10 Incredible Statistics About America’s Coming Retirement Crisis That Will Blow Your Mind
America is facing a retirement crisis that is so colossal that it threatens to collapse the entire financial system. Millions upon millions of Baby Boomers are preparing to retire, but when you take a close look at the numbers it quickly becomes clear that it is mathematically impossible for us to keep the financial promises that we have made to them. The truth is that the days when tens of millions of elderly Americans could enjoy a very comfortable retirement are rapidly drawing to a close. Why? Well, because there is no money. The U.S. government is supposed to have 2.5 trillion dollars in the Social Security trust fund for all of these retiring Baby Boomers, but they “borrowed” all of that money over the past 30 years to pay other bills. Hundreds of other government and corporate pension programs across the United States are either severely underfunded or are not funded at all. Meanwhile, American workers have been contributing pitifully small amounts to their own retirement funds. Americans have been too busy drowning in debt as the pursue the American Dream to worry about putting away anything for the future. So where does all of that leave us? It leaves us with a complete and total financial nightmare on our hands. (Read More...)
43 Percent Of Americans Have Less Than 10,000 Dollars Saved For Retirement
The United States financial system is facing a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude in the coming years. Social Security and Medicare are both on the verge of collapse, and both private and public pension funds all over America are massively underfunded. Now new data is revealing that the number of Americans who have virtually nothing saved up for retirement continues to grow at a rapid pace. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s annual Retirement Confidence Survey, the percentage of American workers who have less than $10,000 saved for retirement has grown to 43%. The number of American workers who say that they have less than $1,000 saved for retirement has grown to 27%. But perhaps this should be no surprise considering the fact that tens of millions of Americans are just trying to figure out how to get through each month financially. After all, it is really hard to plan for retirement when you can barely pay your mortgage. (Read More...)