10 Amazing Charts That Demonstrate The Slow, Agonizing Death
Of The American Worker
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
http://albertpeia.com/deathoftheamericanworker.htm
‘The middle class American worker is in
danger of becoming an endangered species. The politicians are not telling
you the truth, and the mainstream media is certainly not telling you the truth,
but the reality is that there is nothing but bad news on the horizon for
workers in the United States. In the old days, when the big corporations
that dominate our society did well, that also meant good things for American
workers since those corporations would need more of us to work for them.
But in the emerging one world economic system that our economy is being merged
into, those corporations have other choices now. For instance, the big
corporations can now choose to limit the number of "expensive"
American workers that they employ by shipping millions of jobs to the other side of the world.
And from their perspective, it makes perfect sense. They can make much
bigger profits by hiring people on the other side of the planet to work for
them for less than a dollar an hour. If they can get good production out
of those people, then why should they hire Americans for ten to twenty times as
much, plus have to give those Americans health insurance and other
benefits? Another major factor in the slow, agonizing death of the
American worker is technology. We live during a period when technology is
advancing at a pace that is almost unimaginable at the same time that it is
steadily becoming cheaper and cheaper. That means that it is going to
become easier and easier for companies to replace workers with robots and
computers. As I have written about previously, it is being projected that our economy will
lose millions of jobs to technology in the coming years. Yes, some of us
will still be needed to help build the robots and the computers, but not all of
us will. And of course the overall general weakness of the economy is not
helping matters either. The American people inherited the greatest economic
machine in the history of the world, and we have wrecked it. Decades of
very foolish decisions have resulted in the period of steady economic decline
that we are experiencing now.
America is simply not the
economic powerhouse that it once was. Back in 2001, the U.S. economy
accounted for 31.8 percent of global GDP. By 2011, the U.S. economy only
accounted for 21.6 percent of global GDP. That is a collapse any way that
you want to look at it.
Today, American workers are
living in an economy that is rapidly declining, and their jobs are steadily
being stolen by robots, computers and foreign workers that live in countries
where it is legal to pay slave labor wages. Politicians from both
political parties refuse to do anything to stop the bleeding because they think
that the status quo is working just great.
So don't expect things to get
better any time soon.
The following are 10 amazing
charts that demonstrate the slow, agonizing death of the American worker...
#1 Wages And Salaries As A Percentage Of GDP
As you can see, wages as a
percentage of GDP are hovering near an all-time record low. That means
that American workers are bringing home a smaller share of the economic pie
than ever before.
#2 Average Annual Hours Worked Per Employed Person In The
United States
We are an economy that is
rapidly trading good paying full-time jobs for low paying part-time jobs.
The decline in average annual hours worked that we have witnessed represents
the equivalent of losing millions of jobs. There has been an explosion of
"the working poor" in the United States, and
this trend is probably only going to accelerate in the years to come.
#3 Manufacturing Employment
As you can see, there are less
Americans working in manufacturing today than there was in 1950 even though the
population of the country has more than doubled since then. The United
States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing
facilities since 2001, and yet our politicians stand around and do nothing
about it.
#4 Employment-Population Ratio
This is one of my favorite
charts. It shows that there has been absolutely no employment recovery at all since
the end of the last recession. The percentage of working age Americans
that have a job has stayed under 59 percent for 44 months in a row. How
much worse will things get when the next major economic downturn strikes?
#5 Labor Force Participation Rate
This is how the Obama
administration is getting the "unemployment rate" to magically go
down. They are pretending that millions upon millions of
Americans simply do not want to work anymore. As you will notice, the
decline of the labor force participation rate has accelerated greatly since
Barack Obama entered the White House.
#6 Duration Of Unemployment
The average amount of time that
it takes an unemployed worker to find a new job has declined slightly, but it
is still far above normal historical levels. It is a crying shame that it
takes the average unemployed worker two-thirds of a year to find a new job, but
this is the new economic reality that we are all living in.
#7 Delinquency Rate On Residential Mortgages
Since there are not enough jobs
for all of us, and since our wages are not rising as rapidly as the cost of
living is, a whole bunch of us are falling behind on our mortgages. As
you can see, the mortgage delinquency rate has only dropped slightly and is
still way, way above typical levels.
#8 New Homes Sold
American workers also don't have
enough money to go out and buy new homes either. Yes, new home sales have
rebounded slightly this year, but we are nowhere
near where we used to be.
#9 Consumer Credit
Millions of American families
continue to resort to going into debt in a desperate attempt to make ends
meet. After a slight interruption during the last recession, consumer
credit once again is growing at a frightening pace.
#10 Self-Employment At A Record Low
Since there aren't enough jobs
for everyone, why aren't more Americans trying to start their own
businesses? Well, the reality of the matter is that the government has
made it exceedingly difficult to start your own business today. Taxes,
rules, regulations and red tape are choking the life out of millions of small
businesses in the United States. As a result, the percentage of
self-employed Americans is at a record low.
As all of these long-term trends
continue, the middle class will continue to shrink, poverty in America will continue to explode and
government dependence will continue to rise.
The numbers don't lie.
Today, the number of Americans on Social Security Disability now exceeds the entire population
of Greece, and the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of
Spain.
We are in the midst of a
horrifying economic collapse, and the next major wave of that collapse is
rapidly approaching.
Are you ready?’