eventually tips over kinda easily.
5 alarming stats on U.S. economic inequality in Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s new book
Thats the America I came of age in:
'In his latest book, Desmond explores the reason for that stagnation and suggests that many Americans and corporations profit from tens of millions of people having so little. Banks make billions a year in overdraft fees. Companies are able to pay their workers low wages and save on benefits."
(You cant just rip off everybody forever and think the system isn't going to implode on itself someday. It's just not realistic and so here we are...The bank overdraft fees kill me BTW...If I didn't have enough $ to cover the draw on my account? How do you think I can afford your fee exactly?)
"Since 1979, the bottom 90% of income earners in the U.S. experienced annual earnings gains of only 24%, Desmond writes, while the wages of the top 1% of earners more than doubled. His findings are based on data from a number of sources, including the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Pew Research Center."
Lets look at the bias here. When talking about the bottom 90% of income earners? The annual earnings gains is expressed as a percentage written w numbers, 24%. The wages of the top 1% is expressed with words, "more than doubled". Why? Why didn't they use a percentage like they did when talking about the bottom 90%? Instead of writing "more than doubled' why not express it as it was done for the low wage earners? Why didn't they say more than "300 %"
"An increase of 100% in a quantity means that the final amount is 200% of the initial amount (100% of initial + 100% of increase = 200% of initial). In other words, the quantity has doubled."
It didn't increase by 100% for the top 1%. That would just be one time over. It "more than doubled" meaning an increase of over 200%.
If you have $10?
And it "more than doubles"?
How much do you got?
More than $20?
Or more than $30?
Why change the manner in which that number was expressed?
I'll tell you why,
seeing 24% right next to 300% puts it in a much clearer perspective that just the words:
"more than doubled".
I been doing this a long time.
Subtleties like that come through rather easy at this point.
More alarming is the fact that most people were convinced of how well they were doing but that's an entirely different piece :-).
"Looking at inflation-adjusted earnings, ordinary workers have seen their pay tick up just 0.3% a year for several decades, Desmond writes. “Astonishingly, the real wages for many Americans today are roughly what they were 40 years ago.”
(Have you noticed everything keeps coming back to the early 80's?
40 years is a big number in the Bible BTW.)
"In 2020, the federal government spent $53 billion on direct housing assistance for the needy. That same year, it shelled out over $193 billion on homeowner subsidies such as the home mortgage interest deduction."
“Most families who enjoy those subsidies have six-figure incomes and are white,” Desmond writes. “Poor families lucky enough to live in government-owned apartments often have to deal with mold and even lead paint, while rich families are claiming the mortgage interest deduction on first and second homes.”
"In his book, Desmond, analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources, reports that 1 in 18 people in the U.S. live in what’s considered “deep poverty,” or what he calls “a subterranean level of scarcity.”
(Livin it, "I feel your pain". It's not an accident. it's so we can relate to one another when the time comes.)
"In 2020, this category included people who make less than $6,380 a year, or families of four living on less than $13,100. In 2020, almost 18 million people in America lived in these conditions, including some 5 million children."
(Some of us find it morally repugnant.)
“There is growing evidence that America harbors a hard bottom layer of deprivation, a kind of extreme poverty once thought to exist only in faraway places of bare feet and swollen bellies,” Desmond writes.
(No, it's here now and it's built into our systems because people can make $ off of it.)
"Looking at the work of other authors and Federal Reserve data, Desmond found that the racial wealth gap is as wide today as it was more than five decades ago."
"In 2019, the median white household had a net worth of $188,200, compared with $24,100 for the median Black household.".
(Greed and racism killed this country, not gays and abortion. I've been saying it for years and I'll go to my grave saying it.)
"In 2019, the largest U.S. banks charged Americans $11.68 billion in overdraft fees, Desmond found, looking at a number of reports, including from the Center for Responsible Lending.'
"Just 9% of those account holders paid the lion’s share, 84%, of those charges — customers who carried an average balance of less than $350.
“The poor were made to pay for their poverty,”
Desmond wrote.
I have told my son and others that if you know you are going to be poor? Best to it on your terms, not your bosses or the banks.
Reminds me of:
"When I was just a little boy
Standin' to my Daddy's knee
My Papa said "Son, don't let the man get you
And do what he done to me?
'Cause he'll get you
'Cause he'll get ya now, now"
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