Here are 27 statistics – on unemployment, inequality, the drug war, defense spending, climate change and more – that underscore the troubled reality of America in 2014: 1. New income generated since 2009 that has gone to the top 1 percent: 95 percent 2. Financial wealth controlled by the bottom 60 percent of all Americans: 2.3 percent 3. Record combined wealth of the top 400 richest Americans: $2,000,000,000,000 4. Real decline in median middle-class incomes since 1999: $5,000 5. Percentage of Hispanic and African-American children living in poverty, respectively: 33.8 percent; 36.7 percent 6. Amount that food stamps will be cut in 2014: $5 billion 7. Federal minimum wage: $7.25 8. What the minimum wage would be if it had kept pace with gains in worker productivity since 1968: $21.72 9. Number of U.S. workers laboring at or below minimum wage: 3.6 million – the near equivalent of the population of Los Angeles. 10.Stealth taxpayer subsidy to the fast-food industry, paid out as safety-net benefits to McWorkers earning poverty wages: $7 billion 11. Global carbon dioxide levels measured in parts per million: 397 12. Maximum concentration of the greenhouse gas that scientists deem sustainable: 350 13. Years since the turn of this century that have ranked among the warmest 15 on record: All 13 14. Rank of 2013 on that list of the warmest years on record: Number Four 15. U.S. defense spending as of 2012: $682 billion See Article For The Remainder: commondreams.org/view/2014/01/28-10
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 03:48:37 +0000
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