50 Economic Numbers From 2011 That Are Almost Too Crazy
To Believe
50
Economic Numbers From 2011 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe The Economic Collapse | If we do not educate
the American people about how deathly ill the U.S. economy has become, then
they will just keep falling for the same old lies. December 16, 2011 Even
though most Americans have become very frustrated with this economy, the
reality is that the vast majority of them still have no idea just how bad our
economic decline has been or how much trouble we are going to be in if we dont
make dramatic changes immediately. If we do not educate the American
people about how deathly ill the U.S. economy has become, then they will just
keep falling for the same old lies that our politicians keep telling
them. Just tweaking things here and there is not going to fix this
economy. We truly do need a fundamental change in direction.
America is consuming far more wealth than it is producing and our debt is
absolutely exploding. If we stay on this current path, an economic collapse
is inevitable. Hopefully the crazy economic numbers from 2011 that I have
included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up.
At this time
of the year, a lot of families get together, and in most homes the conversation
usually gets around to politics at some point. Hopefully many of you will
use the list below as a tool to help you share the reality of the U.S. economic
crisis with your family and friends. If we all work together, hopefully
we can get millions of people to wake up and realize that business as usual will result in a
national economic apocalypse.
The following
are 50 economic numbers from 2011 that are almost too crazy to believe
.
#1 A staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either
considered to be low income or are living in poverty.
#2 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United
States are living in homes that are either considered to be low income or impoverished.
#3 If the number of Americans that wanted jobs was the same today as it
was back in 2007, the official unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government
would be up to 11 percent.
#4 The average amount of time that a worker stays
unemployed in the United States is now over 40 weeks.
#5 One recent survey found that 77 percent of all U.S. small businesses
do not plan to hire any more workers.
#6 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States
today than there were back in
2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population
since then.
#7 Since December 2007, median household income in the
United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.
#8 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6
million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006. Today, that
number has shrunk to 14.5 million.
#9 A Gallup poll from earlier this year found
that approximately one
out of every five Americans that do have a job consider themselves to be
underemployed.
#10 According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are
currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.
#11 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.
#12 Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages
of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group
had a job.
#13 One recent survey found that one out of every three
Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month
if they suddenly lost their current job.
#14 The Federal Reserve recently announced that the
total net worth of U.S. households declined by 4.1 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2011
alone.
#15 According to a recent study conducted by the
BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income
in the United States is now 154 percent.
#16 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of
marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at
least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percentof all U.S. adults were
married.
#17 The U.S. Postal Service has lost more than 5 billion dollars over the past
year.
#18 In Stockton, California home prices have
declined 64 percent from where they were at when
the housing market peaked.
#19 Nevada has had the highest foreclosure rate in the
nation for 59 monthsin a row.
#20 If you can believe it, the median price of a home in
Detroit is now just $6000.
#21 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of
Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was
just ten years ago.
#22 New home construction in the United States is on
pace to set a brand new all-time
record low in 2011.
#23 As I have written about previously, 19 percent of all American men
between the ages of 25 and 34 are now living with their parents.
#24 Electricity bills in the United States have risen
faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
#25 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health
care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in
1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#26 One study found that approximately 41 percent
of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently
paying off medical debt.
#27 If you can believe it, one out of every seven
Americans has at least 10 credit
cards.
#28 The United States spends about 4 dollars on goods and
services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and
services from the United States.
#29 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit
for 2011 will be 558.2 billion dollars.
#30 The retirement crisis in the United States just
continues to get worse. According to the Employee Benefit Research
Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have
less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have
less than $1,000 saved for retirement.
#31 Today, one out of every six elderly
Americans lives below the federal poverty line.
#32 According to a study that was just released, CEO pay
at Americas
biggest companies rose by 36.5% in just one recent 12 month period.
#33 Today, the too big to fail banks are larger than
ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006
and September 30, 2011.
#34 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a
net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all
Americans combined.
#35 According to an analysis of Census Bureau data done
by the Pew Research Center, the median net worth for households led by someone
65 years of age or older is 47 times greater than the
median net worth for households led by someone under the age of 35.
#36 If you can believe it, 37 percent of all U.S. households that
are led by someone under the age of 35 have a net worth of zero or less than
zero.
#37 A higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty (6.7%) than has ever been measured
before.
#38 Child homelessness in the United States is now 33 percent higher than it was back in
2007.
#39 Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty
in the state of California has increased by 30 percent.
#40 Sadly, child poverty is absolutely exploding all over
America. 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.
#41 Today, one out of every seven Americans is on food
stamps and one out of every four
American children is on food stamps.
#42 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for
just 11.7% of all income. Today, government
transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all
income.
#43 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household
that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number
was below 30 percent.
#44 Right now, spending by the federal government
accounts for about 24 percent of GDP. Back in 2001,
it accounted for just 18 percent.
#45 For fiscal year 2011, the U.S. federal government
had a budget deficit ofnearly 1.3 trillion dollars.
That was the third year in a row that our budget deficit has topped one
trillion dollars.
#46 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune
to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.
#47 Amazingly, the U.S. government has now accumulated a
total debt of 15 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama
first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.
#48 If the federal government began right at this moment
to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would
take over 440,000 years to pay off
the national debt.
#49 The U.S. national debt has been increasing by an
average of more than 4 billion
dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.
#50 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government
has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took
office to the time
that Bill Clinton took office.
Of course the
heart of our economic problems is the Federal Reserve. The Federal
Reserve is a perpetual debt machine, it has almost completely destroyed the
value of the U.S. dollar and it has an absolutely nightmarish track record of
incompetence. If the Federal Reserve system had never been created, the
U.S. economy would be in far better shape. The federal government needs
to shut down the Federal Reserve and
start issuing currency that is not debt-based. That would be a very
significant step toward restoring prosperity to America.
During 2011 we
made a lot of progress in educating the American people about our economic
problems, but we still have a long way to go.
Hopefully next
year more Americans than ever will wake up, because 2012 is going to represent
a huge turning point for this country.