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

[Amerigo Vespucci]

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

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

First Posted: 10-25-10 12:22 PM | Updated: 10-25-10 01:09 PM



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.

Johston sees the depressing figures as a result of government tax policies maintained by politicians with an eye on re-election, not good government:

It is the latest, and in this case quite dramatic, evidence that our economic policies in Washington are undermining the nation as a whole.We have created a tax system that changes continually as politicians manipulate it to extract campaign donations. We have enabled ''free trade'' that is nothing of the sort, but rather tax-subsidized mechanisms that encourage American manufacturers to close their domestic factories, fire workers, and then use cheap labor in China for products they send right back to the United States. This has created enormous downward pressure on wages, and not just for factory workers.

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

[LiberalEsto]

1. That's what happened to me

24 months unemployed, and counting