The Real America

In America today, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. America is a nation with a very tiny elite and the rest of us are poor. In a symbiotic relationship, big business and the wealthy fund the campaigns of politicians, and in turn the politicians pass laws which favor their interests and the economic rewards of society go to just the few. In 2010, the top 500 U.S. corporations -- the Fortune 500-- generated $10.7 trillion in sales, reaped a whopping $702 billion in profits. Their top executives have been rewarding themselves with mega-million dollar compensation packages.
Corporations channel their profits to shareholders, not only in the form of dividends, which reward them for holding shares, but even more importantly in the form of stock buybacks, which reward them for selling shares. The sole purpose of stock buybacks is to give a manipulative boost to a company’s stock price. The top executives then benefit when they exercise their typically bountiful stock options and cash in by selling the stock. For 2001-2010, 459 companies in the S&P 500 Index in January 2011 distributed $1.9 trillion in dividends, equivalent to 40 percent of their combined net income, and $2.6 trillion in buybacks, equal to another 54 percent of their net income.

Meanwhile, American workers have suffered unrelenting cuts in income and the disappearance of jobs.

1] Increasingly, gains in income are becoming very highly concentrated at the top of the food chain in America. The following is how income gains in the United States were distributed during 2010:
-37 percent of all income gains went to the top 0.01 percent of all income earners
-56 percent of all income gains went to the rest of the top 1 percent
-7 percent of all income gains went to the bottom 99 percent

2] Back in the 70s, the top 1 percent earned about 8 percent of all income. Today, they earn about 21 percent of all income.

3] The wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.

4] According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.

5] The poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

6] Median household income in the United States is down 7.8 percent since December 2007 after adjusting for inflation.

7] The top 0.01% of all Americans make an average of $27,342,212. The bottom 90% make an average of $31,244.

8] According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 1979 and 2007 income growth for the top 1 percent of all U.S. income earners was an astounding 390 percent. For the bottom 90 percent, income growth was only 5 percent over that same time period.

9] According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation.

10] In 2010, 2.6 million more Americans descended into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.

11] According to the New York Times, approximately 100 million Americans are either living in poverty or in "the fretful zone just above it".

12] According to Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, about 53 percent of all income went to those on middle-income back in the 1970s, but today only about 46 percent of all income does.

13] When you look at the ratio of employee compensation to GDP, it is now the lowest that is has been in about 50 years.

14] In 1970, 65 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods". By 2007, only 44 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods".

15] Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty. Today, 15.1% of all Americans are living in poverty.

16] The poverty rate for children living in the United States increased to 22% in 2010.

17] According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 6.7% of all Americans are living in "extreme poverty", and that is the highest level that has ever been recorded before.

18] According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of "very poor" rose in 300 out of the 360 largest metropolitan areas during 2010.

19] Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

20] The average duration of unemployment in the United States is nearly three times as long as it was back in the year 2000.

21] In the United States today, there are 240 million working age people. Only about 140 million of them are actually working.

22] Back in 2001, the ratio of wages to GDP was sitting at approximately 49 percent. Today, it has fallen all the way down to about 44 percent.

23] Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.

24] Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.

25] In 2010, 19.7% of all U.S. working adults had jobs that would not have been enough to push a family of four over the poverty line even if they had worked full-time hours for the entire year.

26] Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

27] One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one government anti-poverty program.

28] If inflation was measured the exact same way that it was measured back in 1980, the rate of inflation in the United States would be well over 10 percent.

29] According to a recent report produced by Pew Charitable Trusts, approximately one out of every three Americans that grew up in a middle-income household has slipped down the income ladder.

30] Total student loan debt in America has now passed the 1 trillion dollar mark, and about 270 billion dollars of those loans are at least 30 days delinquent. These debts are crushing young families.

31] Today, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

32] According to the Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that gets direct monetary benefits from the federal government. Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a home that received direct monetary benefits from the federal government.

33] Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.

34] One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.

35] The number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent since 2007.

36] According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4% of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1% of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6% of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.

37] In November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, more than 46 million Americans are on food stamps.

38] Right now, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

39] It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.

40] In 2010, 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps.

American families are looking for ways to survive any way that they can. Dollar stores are absolutely thriving these days because that is the only place many families can afford to shop. And when they cannot afford to shop, there are the pay-day check loan companies with exorbitant interest rates opening up everywhere for workers to borrow from.

Facts and figures from here and here