The CBO has quantified what most of America already knows, the richer got richer while the rest of us are squeezing blood from a financial stone. In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office analyzed after tax household income growth by percentiles for 1995-2007. Guess what they found? The Rich increased their wealth out of the stratosphere in comparison to the rest of us.
The Republican crazies are in a celebrity death match with sleepwalking Democrats. It is a fabricated drama amounting to not much of anything in terms of the nation's well being. The stakes are supposedly the shutdown of the United States government at midnight this Friday. But the most pressing issue isn't discussed on Capitol Hill.
Why can't anyone in a position of power mention the unmentionable? There have been no net new jobs in the United States since 2000. There were 137 million employed citizens that year. There are 139 million employed citizens today. This comes into clear focus when you consider the size of the workforce for 2000 and 2010; 143 million versus 154 million respectively. There are actually fewer jobs in proportion to the workforce.
Isn't this a worthy topic? Shouldn't the story be carried nightly on a major network with a title like: Jobless America, Day 4000
Personal Income and Outlays for February 2010 was released today. PCE is what the press calls consumer spending and it rose 0.3%. The below graph shows the hit Americans have taken in good old fashioned income this recession.
Today, personal incomes fell 0.7%, the largest single drop in 3 years. Consumer spending slowed also. What a surprise, Americans are tapped out, credit card debt is now estimated at $1 trillion, double from 1996 and unpaid debt has increased 22% from one year ago. Here are some statistics from EPI.
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