DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE. THINGS STILL SUCK FOR 90% OF US. ROBERT REICH: Today’s unemployment report shows more than 200,000 new jobs have been added to the economy for the last six months. That’s good news -- until you realize (1) how badly they pay -- the typical family income in current dollars is $52,959. Factoring in inflation, thats $3,303 less than before the recession — a nearly 6 percent drop; (2) how many are part-time -- 18.8 percent of all jobs in the U.S. are now part-time. Before the recession, 16.5 percent of all jobs were part time; (3) how few working-age people have jobs – the labor-force participation rate is the lowest it’s been since 1978, when wives and mothers first began streaming into paid work to prop up family incomes; (4) how many workers are overqualified for the jobs they do have – most young college graduates are in jobs that require no more than a high-school degree; (5) how many mortgage holders still owe more on their homes than their homes are worth -- nearly 37 percent, according to the real estate firm Zillow; (6) how many people are still in poverty – around 15 percent of the population, including 24 percent of the nation’s children; and (7) how much of the income is concentrated at the top – the best estimate we have is 95 percent of the gains are going to the richest 1 percent. This is not a strong or balanced economy. We can’t have one until the bottom 90 percent receive a larger slice of the pie.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 15:12:03 +0000