America's Middle Class is dying and the stats prove it

Take off your hats and bow to your betters. It's over - the noble American experiment I mean.

The American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer here at a historically unprecedented rate.

Once the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but that's ending at a blinding pace.

The new 'global economy' means that middle class American workers have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and practically no regulations.

If the socialism the Tea Party is shouting about means anything in the U.S. anymore it refers to the golden circle of the super rich, who are profiting at unheard of rates whilst the rest of this nation suffers.

U.S. Corporations have grown massively rich exploiting third world labor pools, but middle class American workers have increasingly lost out.

Here are the statistics to prove it:

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are now in the hands of 1 percent of the people.

• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 10 years ago. (Thanks George!).

• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans. (Thanks George!)

• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.

• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

• 61 percent of Americans 'always or usually' live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.

• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.

• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

• For the first time in U.S. history, U.S. banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth than all individual Americans put together.

• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.

• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.

• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.

• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.

• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.

• For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.

• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.

The American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new 'global' labor pool. We're becoming the Chinese and the Indian labor market.

The proof is all around us, the American Middle Class is dying - and once it is gone it will take decades to rebuild, if that's even possible now, the way things are going.

To view the statistics quoted in this article CLICK HERE

http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/manhattan_diary/americas-middle-class-is-dying-and-the-stats-prove-it-99180624.html