Eight Charts Explaining Everything Wrong With America

Mother Jones:

A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244.

Read the whole story: Mother Jones

Comments

[OldTulsan]

10:26 AM on 02/24/2011

Finally, some recognition of the SUBminimum wage of waiters and waitresses...

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/waiting_for_change_the_213_federal_subminimum_wage
Waiting for Change: The $2.13 Federal Subminimum Wage

"The minimum wage has been one of the most investigated and debated labor market topics among economists, politicians, business entities, and the public. Much less attention has been paid to the subminimum wage received by tipped workers (referred to as the “tipped minimum wage”). The two-tiered minimum wage system is unknown to many and the existence of the subminimum wage is often a surprise. Did you know that a waiter at a restaurant in Indiana probably earns a base wage of $2.13 per hour; $4.34 for a server in the Colorado Rockies; and $8.67 for wait staff near Olympia National Park in the state of Washington? These pay disparities are created by an obscure and often misunderstood federal provision called a ‘tip credit,’ which allows employers to pay tipped workers below the binding federal or state minimum wage.

This brief seeks to shed light on the subminimum wage, its wide differences from state to state, and its impact on workers and labor markets..."

[DFD CPA]

09:43 AM on 02/24/2011

I'm sure there are those who see the postwar years as some of the WORST years this country has seen...

[Jim Milks]

09:16 AM on 02/24/2011

For all those who have been thinking that the US will become a third-world oligarchy, these charts show that it's already there.

[OldTulsan]

08:05 PM on 02/23/2011

Yahoo! has picked up the story"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110223/ts_yblog_thelookout/separate-but-unequal-charts-show-growing-rich-poor-gap
Separate but unequal: Charts show growing rich-poor gap - Yahoo! News

"The Great Recession and the slump that followed have triggered a jobs crisis that's been making headlines since before President Obama was in office, and that will likely be with us for years. But the American economy is also plagued by a less-noted, but just as serious, problem: Simply put, over the last 30 years, the gap between rich and poor has widened into a chasm.

Gradual developments like this don't typically lend themselves to news coverage. But Mother Jones magazine has crunched the data on inequality, and put together a group of stunning new charts. Taken together, they offer a dramatic visual illustration of who's doing well and who's doing badly in modern America...."

[omega777]

07:34 PM on 02/23/2011

George Carlin -"Who Really Controls America"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q&feature=related

[Roadrun]

07:16 PM on 02/23/2011

When Joe the Plumber stood up and started talking about "Redistribution of Wealth" he and a truck load of low to no information whiners were told it meant that someone was going to take their $5 and give it to someone really poor. Now, at the same time these low grey matter thinkers are told they will one day rise from that trailer park and become ultra wealthy, and they believe it.

This, dear Bagger, is the real and actual "Redistribution of Wealth". It is going the opposite way you think. I understand you are told to think otherwise but what if I told you to think that you should enter the Miss America Pageant because you could probably win? Dude, it just ain't true and never will be, don't enter 'cause a) it's for chicks and b) you aren't good lookin'.

[ProfessorMacphisto]

05:15 PM on 02/23/2011

Hey baggers: Deny this:

Money = Power

So it is a good thing for you that there is so much power in the hands of so few. How do you believe your interests will be served?

[ProfessorMacphisto]

05:06 PM on 02/23/2011

This information is so important that it needs to go to the front page banner headline. Underneath these facts are the fate of this country. This is behind all that is going wrong in this country.

[doublethink]

04:37 PM on 02/23/2011

"There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today"

"We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3vbCxj2ifs&feature=related

[mcmutter]

12:14 PM on 02/23/2011

talk radio certainly has dumbed the south and heartland of our country ....

[MrStat1]

03:44 PM on 02/23/2011

And you are smarter than the rest of the country because why?

[ProfessorMacphisto]

05:10 PM on 02/23/2011

Reading for information on the causes of the decline of the American middleclass as opposed to watching violence on TV; living or dying on the results of sporting events; numbing down with alcohol and substances; absorbed in greed to the benefit of human compassion; having a curious mind rather than being a ditto head for the likes of Rush and Beck.

[Peter007]

11:03 AM on 02/23/2011

The average income of the bottom 90% is $31,000.
The average compensation package for a government employee is $117,000.

That's the gap that is making America poor.
$31,000 wouldn't be bad except for the fact that government regulation and taxes have doubled the cost of living while private salaries have remained somewhat flat.

[maybealittlecommonsense]

11:05 AM on 02/23/2011

Great point!

[ProfessorMacphisto]

05:14 PM on 02/23/2011

You already showed that you are trying to fool your reader. You present government employee numbers as "package" and you do not do the same for the average income as these numbers do not have the benefits included. All reliable data shows that for the same level of education that people in the private sector do better than the public. This is easily verifiable.

[INDIVIDUALTERRY]

10:42 AM on 02/23/2011

Hey ! You bums at the bottom are pulling down my average !

Notice 7 out of ten richest pols where progressive liberals?
The same ones telling you .."we can not sustain this lifestyle"

[DARK STAR]

10:25 AM on 02/23/2011

So, the money that the ultra rich wield is enough to buy favor in congress in order to amass even more wealth, at the expense of the middle and lower class.

MSM will not make this known and will do everything to thwart the information and data that is presented so clearly.

Some of these graphs are sickening and should bother all Americans who wish to preserve our Union.