29 amazing stats about America today . . . (Source)
Why worry? Be happy.
#1 In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.
#2 According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 1979 and 2007 income growth for the top 1 percent of all U.S. income earners was an astounding 390 percent. For the bottom 90 percent, income growth was only 5 percent over that same time period.
#3 According to a joint House and Senate report entitled “Income Inequality and the Great Recession“, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States brought in a total of 10.0 percent of all income in 1980, but by the time 2008 had rolled around that figure had skyrocketed to 21.0 percent.
#4 According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 1 percent is the only group that saw its share of our national income increase between 1979 and 2007.
#5 The wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans now own more than a third of all the wealth in the United States.
#6 More than 50 percent of all stocks and bonds are owned by just 1 percent of the population.
#7 The poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
#8 The top 0.01% of all Americans make an average of $27,342,212. The bottom 90% make an average of $31,244.
#9 Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty. Today, 15.1% of all Americans are living in poverty.
#10 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 6.7% of all Americans are living in “extreme poverty”, and that is the highest level that has ever been recorded before.
#11 Back in 2001, the ratio of wages to GDP was sitting at approximately 49 percent. Today, it has fallen all the way down to about 44 percent.
#12 According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation.
#13 According to Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, about 53 percent of all income went to the middle class back in the 1970s, but today only about 46 percent of all income does.
#14 In 1970, 65 percent of all Americans lived in “middle class neighborhoods”. By 2007, only 44 percent of all Americans lived in “middle class neighborhoods”.
#15 According to a recent report produced by Pew Charitable Trusts, approximately one out of every three Americans that grew up in a middle class household has slipped down the income ladder.
#16 According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of all income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1 percent of all Americans.
#17 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
#18 According to a recent report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.
#19 Last year, 2.6 million more Americans dropped into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.
#20 Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.
#21 Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.
#22 The poverty rate for children living in the United States rose to 22% in 2010.
#23 Today, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
#24 The number of Americans on food stamps has increased 74% since 2007.
#25 We are told that the economy is recovering, but the number of Americans on food stamps has grown by another 8 percent over the past year.
#26 In 2010, 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps.
#27 The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer on a global scale as well. According to Credit Suisse, those with a household net worth of a million dollars or more control 38.5% of all the wealth in the world. Last year, that figure was at 35.6%. As you can see, it is rapidly moving in the wrong direction.
#28 According to the same Credit Suisse study just mentioned, the bottom two-thirds of the global population controls just 3.3% of all the wealth.
#29 If you can believe it, more than 3 billion people currently live on less than 2 dollars a day.
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Note: A University of Zurich study that found that a “super-entity” made up of 147 gigantic corporations basically dominates the entire global economy….
“Corporations not only completely dominate the U.S. economy, they also completely dominate the global economy as well. A newly released University of Zurich study examined more than 43,000 major multinational corporations. The study discovered a vast web of interlocking ownerships that is controlled by a “core” of 1,318 giant corporations.
But that “core” itself is controlled by a “super-entity” of 147 monolithic corporations that are very, very tightly knit. As a recent article in NewScientist noted, these 147 corporations control approximately 40 percent of all the wealth in the entire network” (Source: article)
Once upon a time, the United States had a thriving middle class unlike anything the world had ever seen.
But now millions of families are scratching and clawing in a desperate attempt to stay afloat.
(Source)
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The 1% fear the 99%.
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Related articles
- New Census Report Says 1 in 6 Americans Live in Poverty; Real Numbers Even Higher (alternet.org)
- Massive Wealth Inequality In America (whitelocust.wordpress.com)
- The WalMart Heirs Have The Same Net Worth As The Bottom 30 Percent Of Americans (thinkprogress.org)
- Income of richest Americans almost tripled between 1979 and 2007, congressional study says (newsok.com)
- The Ranks of the Poorest Poor Are Growing (indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com)
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