New Figures Detail Depth Of Unemployment Misery, Lower Earnings For All But Super Wealthy

[cal04]

S.O.S.
SHOCKING NEW WAGE STATISTICS RELEASED
video at link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/25/income_inequality_statistics_tax_code__n_773392.html

One out of every 34 Americans who earned wages in 2008 earned absolutely nothing -- not one cent -- in 2009

The stunning figure was released earlier this month by the Social Security Administration, but apparently went unreported until it appeared today on Tax.com in a column by Pulitzer Prize-winning tax reporter David Cay Johnston.

It's not just every 34th earner whose financial situation has been upended by the financial crisis. Average wages, median wages, and total wages have all declined -- except at the very top, where they leaped dramatically, increasing five-fold.

Johnston writes that while the number of Americans earning more than $50 million fell from 131 in 2008 to 74 in 2009, those that remained at the top increased their income from an average of $91.2 million in 2008 to almost $519 million.

[brentspeak]

1. Anyone who believes that making the rich richer helps the rest of us is a fool n/t

[leftstreet]

2. Wow. That's a lot of money. Where's our cake?

K&R

[Winterblues]

3. We were told constantly how bad the economic situation was before the last election.

Worst since the great depression, we were told..IMO if things were that dire, some real significant action should have been implemented. They should have treated it like the crisis they kept telling us it was, and yet what we got was more war and excuses for Big Business.. When someone says "Main Street NOT Wall Street" one would expect some legislation introduced to help Main Street and NOT Wall Street, but what exactly did we get? Huge Bonuses for Wall Street Brokers and bankruptcies and foreclosures for Main Street, and Democrats are scratching their heads wondering what happened...:shrug:

[xchrom]

4. Amen. Nt

[onenote]

5. incomplete information?

Saying that 1 out of 34 Americans who earned wages in 2008 earned nothing in 2009 certainly is an eye catcher. It might be less of an eyecatcher if the article simply said that around 3 percent of those earning wages in 2008 earned no wages in 2009 and, oh, by the way, a portion of that number represents people retiring. We know that unemployment grew from the beginning of 2008 to the beginning of 2009, so the fact that there are a number of people who earned money in 2008, but didn't earn money in 2009 is hardly a surprise. Moreover, statistics about what percentage of the workforce retires each year are hard to come by and the article doesn't provide any point of reference, such as the number of Americans earning wages in 2006 that didn't earn any wages in 2007. In fact, the article doesn't link to the Soc Security Administration study on which it is based, and I couldn't locate it on the Social Security Admin. website (although I concede it might be there).

What is known is that the percentage of the workforce over 55 is growing. While people are also hanging onto their jobs longer (and on the other hand some people past retirment age who would work are retiring only because they've really been laid off) some percentage of workers retire every year and each one represents someone who moved from wage earning status to non wage earning status.


Finally, I don't dispute the article's other assertions about the growing wage disparity in the country and its significance. MY only point is that the eye catching claim about "1 in 34 Americans" moving from wage earning to non wage earning status is incomplete.