50 Percent Of American Workers Make Less Than 28,031 Dollars A Year

a reply to: SubTruth

So what are you spending the other $3000 on each month? I work in IT and used to make around $60k a year, now closer to $40k, but my household income is around $100k a year and we are very very comfortable. Sure cost of living has increased a bit here and there, but many of the products I buy have gone down drastically in price as well.

So while I get what you are saying I don't think you are being fair. Maybe in a few areas around the US $100k doesn't go that far, but for the majority 100k is middle-upper middle class.

a reply to: badgerprints
...
And on top of what do they expect us to buy the products with, think of the eroded tax base, eroded on multiple levels, which in turn trickles down to even fewer jobs.

But hey, they killed the unions, told us they were going to ship the menial jobs no one wanted to do overseas (the jobs our parents probably raised most of us on), keep the professional ones, and said we'd become a service-based economy. Erm.

And people let it happen by buying into their lies and allowing those lies to divide us. This can be turned around though.

a reply to: onequestion

CAD is the way to go. CNC is great but if you know CAD you can do anything from CNC programming to architectural work to jewelry design as a contractor and make a killing.

originally posted by: badgerprints
Wal mart employs 22 million worldwide.
They've been limiting hours to avoid paying for insurance for part timers.

Walmart trade as Asda in the UK and they compose working shifts which are often in line with welfare benefit rules, especially 16 hours total per week, which is the minimum requirement for a parent to continue receiving Tax Credits.
It also avoids a 13.8% tax payment the employer must pay on top of any employee weekly earnings they pay in excess of £153 - www.gov.uk...

Walmart/Asda staff are in effect subsidised by welfare benefits in the UK...the company certainly plays a clever game.

-39 percent of American workers made less than $20,000 last year.

-52 percent of American workers made less than $30,000 last year.

-63 percent of American workers made less than $40,000 last year.

-72 percent of American workers made less than $50,000 last year.

I don't know about you, but those numbers are deeply troubling to me. It has been estimated that it takes approximately $50,000 a year to support a middle class lifestyle for a family of four, and so the fact that 72 percent of all workers make less than that amount shows how difficult it is for families that try to get by with just a single breadwinner. The way that our economy is structured now, both parents usually have to work as hard as they can just to pay the bills.

What are the effects of this on our families?

When do parents have time to raise their children, without upbringing what will the next generation be like?

originally posted by: AlaskanDad

-39 percent of American workers made less than $20,000 last year.

-52 percent of American workers made less than $30,000 last year.

-63 percent of American workers made less than $40,000 last year.

-72 percent of American workers made less than $50,000 last year.

I don't know about you, but those numbers are deeply troubling to me. It has been estimated that it takes approximately $50,000 a year to support a middle class lifestyle for a family of four, and so the fact that 72 percent of all workers make less than that amount shows how difficult it is for families that try to get by with just a single breadwinner. The way that our economy is structured now, both parents usually have to work as hard as they can just to pay the bills.

What are the effects of this on our families?

When do parents have time to raise their children, without upbringing what will the next generation be like?

They will be transhumanistic robotic slaves who don't know any better.

originally posted by: tinker9917

originally posted by: SubTruth
a reply to: onequestion

Hi buddy I am talking household income not personal. A household income of 100,000 a year used to equal a good life.......Not so much anymore.

100,000 per year not a good life? That would pay for a great house, 2 good cars and plenty of living expense. It's the credit cards and crap that people use that make that kind of income unlivable.

That's $8000 per month plus! If you struggle on that much income, you really need to learn some financial control.

They take a good bit of that away from you in taxes, so you're lucky if you take home half of that. Plus, define 2 good cars. To replace a car I paid $21K for 8 years ago is going to cost me $34K today. My parents paid $21K 40 years ago for a house bigger than the one I live in, which cost me more than 15 times that. Gas is more. Food is more. Housing is more. Utilities are more. And my salary is less and less in proportion.

I'm old enough to remember full medical coverage, full pensions with medical, profit-sharing, merit pay, and bonuses and what a shock such a thing as cost of living increases and raises and young enough to have seen all that go bye bye. Very little of that's been around for the past 16 years, and again, mainly because we let it slip away. Now you're lucky if they give you, courtesy aof more tax cuts for THEM, a 401K you are privileged if they contribute 3% to, that same 3% they cut your raises to make up for and then some.

They did it a little at a time, took it all away, and made people believe it was for everyone's good, to save jobs, blah blah blah or worse yet put people in fear of losing their jobs that they lost anyway, despite shutting up and working twice as hard out of fear.

You think things are bad now, wait till all the people my age who lost their pensions and their 401Ks in 2009 "retire."

a reply to: Shuye

The Indian visa workers at my company command $150/hour and are all building palaces, and I'm not even kidding. Tell me we don't have those skills here in American people and I'll call you a liar. That's just another lie the corporations are making up to keep us from our jobs.

And my son, a 4.0 mechanical engineer who I spent $200K educating is working as a surveyor for $16/hour. It's honest work though and he's learning a lot so for now, that's fine...but what's in the future?

Look I'm not in favor of "war on the rich", I'm merely interested in stopping the war on the poor/middle-class.

Make the rich pay their fair share.. I don't care how, they shouldn't be able to side-step taxes.

We had systems put in place, systems and measures, and regulations, that served as the new-deal between the workers, management, and capital. These systems had their flaws, they had corruption, they had inefficiency, but they were better for the average person, overall.

Raising tariffs, re-regulating the financial industry, ending free-trade, and reforming campaign finance laws so that government stays of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Regulation will be dismissed by the bankers/politicians in their pockets as "unnecessary" or "stifling". when what it does is destroy a fraudulent business model.

a reply to: NonsensicalUserName

Show me how taxes help the middle class?

a reply to: NonsensicalUserName

The richest 1 per cent in your nation own more than the bottom 90 per cent,30 trillion has been pumped in to support Wall Street Zombie banks and other corporate crooks since 2008 all of which will be payed backed by ordinary citizens it certainly wont be paid back by corporations most of whom now have their head offices in the Bahamas or such.I understand that support for entrepenuership and the protestant work ethic is engrained in Americans but sooner or later you've got to realise you've been right royally raped,and its not over yet they want your pension plan and they'll probably get it,hell they probably wont be happy till they've ripped the linoleum off your floor.

a reply to: khnum

That's the Saudi Arabian model, isn't it?

Globalization. It's for everyone.

a reply to: ~Lucidity

My dopey country is finalising free trade agreements with China and Japan,God only knows how many job loses that will create,the thing is none of us vote for this crap and they certainly dont tell us at election time that they are going to do such things

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
a reply to: badgerprints
...
And on top of what do they expect us to buy the products with, think of the eroded tax base, eroded on multiple levels, which in turn trickles down to even fewer jobs.

But hey, they killed the unions,

The Unions have killed plenty of jobs for themselves as well.

a reply to: khnum
It sucks. Seriously sucks what the politicians and corporations have done to this country. But as I keep repeating...we let them. We share in the blame. We can also fix it if we could ever freaking unite again.

a reply to: badgerprints

Killing the unions was part of a systemic plan. I saw the plan (gray area material, but I'm not kidding).

Sure some unions messed up, but overall, at least unions fought for workers, gave people unity and a goal, as the devil you knew. With this new devil, you're swinging on your own.

originally posted by: Eunuchorn
a reply to: stormcell

Of course there will be loopholes, & obviously it would be much harder to put a limit on capital gains & such, but they're getting all of this anyways ON TOP of their official $22,000 per minute salaries while the 99% of people doing all the work get screwed.

There is no fixing the system so long as we (as a GLOBAL society) continue worshipping movie stars, sports stars, & CEOs for their excessive wage disparity.

I agree with this so much. I see execs in the company I work for get paid so much and it sickens me. All they do is try to figure out how best to ship jobs overseas. Makes me ill. If they keep on doing that I wonder who in the hell in the US is going to make enough money to actually buy the products they make.

a reply to: onequestion

hmmm...

I think you're being a bit broad.
however, say we raise taxes on the rich.

what does this do?

well it might (supposing it was enough of an increase) shift the source of federal revenue away from the middle and lower-class to the upper class. well it leaves room to lower taxes for the middle class, without further compromising the budget.

originally posted by: ~Lucidity
a reply to: badgerprints

Killing the unions was part of a systemic plan. I saw the plan (gray area material, but I'm not kidding).

Sure some unions messed up, but overall, at least unions fought for workers, gave people unity and a goal, as the devil you knew. With this new devil, you're swinging on your own.

Yep that was the great bow down of the worker class. The unions should have organized mass riots in the streets. Instead we all got sold out again by our own dollars and union dues.

a reply to: NonsensicalUserName

I'm just saying more money in the hands of people and less in government, or just less to any massive conglomeration period.