employment gap between rich, poor widest on record

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_JOBS_GAP_RICH_AND_POOR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-09-16-08-11-23

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The gap in employment rates between America's highest- and lowest-income families has stretched to its widest levels since officials began tracking the data a decade ago, according to an analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press.

Rates of unemployment for the lowest-income families - those earning less than $20,000 - have topped 21 percent, nearly matching the rate for all workers during the 1930s Great Depression.

U.S. households with income of more than $150,000 a year have an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent, a level traditionally defined as full employment. At the same time, middle-income workers are increasingly pushed into lower-wage jobs. Many of them in turn are displacing lower-skilled, low-income workers, who become unemployed or are forced to work fewer hours, the analysis shows.

"This was no `equal opportunity' recession or an `equal opportunity' recovery," said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. "One part of America is in depression, while another part is in full employment."

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Octafish]

2. Think Positive!

Think Positive!

[xchrom]

3. i'm Positive the %1 are doing very well. nt

[Octafish]

4. Absolutely positive! Not perpetually disgruntled at all.

I got the what's for this weekend on DU for criticizing the warmongering greedhead class served by administration after administration.

As for the unemployment situation of the well-to-do: These folks get to help one another using every trick in the Wall Street-Washington revolving door playbook. Those on the bottom of the heap? Well, too bad, so sad.

TIRED of INEQUALITY? Get used to it. Things look like they're only gonna get worse.

[WinkyDink]

5. So that's working out well for them.

[bvar22]

6. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

These things do NOT happen by accident!
They are the Direct Result of 30 years of Republican & Republican lite Economic Policy.

It is well past time for a revival of the Economic Policy, Tax Rates, and Trade Policies of the 50s and 60s that produced the Largest, Wealthiest, and Most Upwardly Mobile Working Class the WORLD has ever seen,

[xchrom]

7. indeed, it's not an accident. nt

[hfojvt]

8. I am not sure this makes any sense

If you are single and have no job, well it is kinda hard to NOT fall into the bottom 20%.

If you are married and one or more of the adults loses a job, there are sorta good odds that your income will fall.

In other words, the group of households with incomes below $20,000 is kinda automatically gonna include lots of unemployed people.

On the other hand, consider a power couple making $200,000 a year. Say one spouse is making $120,000 a year and the other making $80,000 a year. If one adult loses their job, then guess what, they just FELL OUT of the "households making over $150,000 a year" group.

In other words, it is kinda automatically difficult to stay in the "over $150,000" group if you are unemployed.

The other sorta automatic thing is that a person making $120,000 a year is kinda powerful. They have status, they have connections. They know people who can hire their spouse, and not just know people. They count them as friends. Spouse of a local bank president does not have to fill out an application and go through a process, because the bank president knows the guy who owns the car dealership, the furniture store. The spouse of a doctor is very well known. Doctor buys a new car every three years. Spouse needs a job, the dealership where he/she buys those cars has a strong incentive to hire spouse of a doctor, or son/daughter of a doctor.

These particular playing fields are never gonna be level. In any society.

[liberal_at_heart]

9. kick.

[xchrom]

10. Kick