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AP
Gas is among the expenses that may be pinching families these days.
Your bills seem to be going up, and yet you seem to be bringing in less money. Sound familiar?
You don't have to be unemployed to feel the nation's economic squeeze. Several recent economic reports have pointed to the difficulties even those who have held on to their jobs are facing.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported last month that personal income fell very slightly in August, meaning that overall people earned slightly less than they had in July.
Despite that drop, however, consumer spending rose a bit in August as Americans were hammered by higher prices for food and gas.
On Wednesday, the government said that consumers once again likely paid more for food and gas last month, as compared to the previous month. But consumer prices for everything else rose only very slightly in September.
The reports are discouraging because they come after years of tough economic times. Median income has fallen 6.4 percent since 2007 after adjusting for inflation. A deep recession that officially lasted from December 2007 until June 2009 has been followed by a sluggish economic recovery and a high unemployment rate hovering around 9 percent.
A story in the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek compares the state of working Americans today to those in the 1960s, when household debt was low, savings were high and salaries were on the upswing.
Cut to today and the case of Tamra Loomis, a 32-year-old single mom who earns $17 an hour but has to cut corners where she can, using coupons, growing vegetables and even using her parents’ Internet connection instead of paying for her own.
“At this point, I’m paycheck to paycheck,” Loomis told the magazine. “A lot of people aren’t hiring, and when they are, they offer even less than what I make.”
Related:
Living paycheck to paycheck, or worse
Frugal food: Protein that doesn’t kill your pocketbook
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no cable no internet no home phone no vacations. havent had a raise in 6 years
PEOPLE....
WHERE IS OUR MONEY?????
In order to provide wealth back to the American public and to prevent it from only going to the top 1% we need to use this solution.
1st. - We can agreee that for the last 100 years or so that corporations have been forcing out individual business owners.
Those individual business owners could be found everywhere and they were more than able to have an opportunity to accomplish the American Dream.
Now Corporations are everywhere and individual business owners no longer have an opportunity to compete because of the size of these corporations.
In order to provide wealth back to the public we not only need jobs but we need to place a CAP on the % of a given market that corporations can operate.
If they corporations are only allowed to do 40% of the farming in this country it leaves 60% of that market for individual owners to profit.
CORPORATE MONOPOLY - When corporations in an industry do not leave room for individual owners to compete for business.
Listen well because here is our solution!!!!!!!!!!!!
(sarc)Yay Obamanomics!!!!! Four more years (/sarc)
Douchebag Partiers and leftists should have put this economy on the right track over a year ago. For every day a politician goes without the umemployment rate dropping, they should be charged $1/2 a million, at least until unemployment drops below 7%.
I'm doing okay, but that's because i've cut back on stuff like vacations, eating out, Christmas spending and impulse buying.
It amazes me to watch me minimum wage children, and their friends buy things like $5 Halloween sweaters for their cat, cigarettes and 1.50 fountain sodas - they don't even realize that they're wasting money, and how these things add up.
I've made the same observation after taking the same steps. Still, I'm losing ground financially and in my 70th year see the country that me and my fellow Marines bled for becoming a feudal state, my fellow citizens either serfs or hired thugs in the fiefdom of the uber-rich.
News like this is what makes Republicans Happy!
Just gotta make it political and stupid.
Since the more well off people are the more likely they vote republican, the goal of republicans is to make as many well off as possible. Since the more worse off people are the more they vote democrat, what do you think the goal of democrats are?
The last five year make it difficult to prove me wrong. :<)
you are living in oz. the conservative goal is keep everyone but the ultra wealthy fat, lazy, stupid and breeding and oh yeah, god-fearing.
Ever notice how you see the vote bush/cheney bumper stickers on the rattiest cars with the most junk falling from them, the most fast food wrappers in the windows and the most kids piling out?
Do you know that scientific studies(something you neo-cons don't believe in) have shown the more educated you are the more likely you are to be tolerant and liberal? Probably don't, come to think of it.
mj,
I don't notice those things at all. In fact, the most educated tend to be republican and the wealthiest. Did you notice that the liberals tend to be on welfare, unemployed or in some way supported by the government? Did you notice that the liberals tend to be jealous of those that have more, but aren't willing to put in the effort to be more than they are?
This is for all the young people 18/25. Back in 1969 I was
making $80 bucks a week, take home was $65, I had a new 1969 Chevy Nova with
the payments at $83.19, my rent was $45 a month and was a two bedroom home, my lights was $15/20 month and beer was only 99 cents a six pack and each month I
had money left over.
I'm sorry young kids today do not have the America that I
had even at $8.00 bucks a hour, kids can not have the big three, light, home
and a new car, but that America is gone for me also, I'm driving a 2001 Chevy that's
10 years old now, who want a $500 a month payment with the Obama plan. So kids
you want the American that I had fight for it back. Oh by the way Wall Street
is not the ones that did you wrong, it's at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW,
Washington, DC 20500-6300
Ron Paul 2012
Heath Insurance going up again this year. No raise in 3 years, some co-workers took a cut in 2009 that they have finally gotten back. Food and fuel higher. Banks jacked interest rates on debts just before the CARD Act went in to effect. More an more Americans slipping closer to poverty. In 20 years America will look like India, with slums and gated mansions and nothing in between.
Thats the plan, and there isn't anything we can do. Voting one party out and bringing one in that is even worse won't help either, we as Americans are totally screwed. Both Parties are determined to destroy the middle class and are celebrating that it is almost done. The races today are not about anything more than which party will get the spoils of the war they have successfully waged on all us poor surfs.
Not true!
Bush average unemployment 5%, Obama average unemployment 9%, there is a lesser of two evils.
Bush was in office when all hell broke loose he is just as much to blame as Obama
Most definitely. This started at least 10 years ago. I am a legal administrator and when hiring legal secretaries law firms went down to $10 an hour. I thought, "this is not good." Another example: My son works at a machine shop. A while ago the boss laid off half the employees, lower wages for the rest, and made them work 7 days a week, sometimes 12 hours a day. Two of his friends work at other companies that have done the same thing. One was fired because his wife threatened suicide so he left work early to deal with the situation. The other was fired because he had a school function to go to with his kids and then got sick but he brought a doctor’s note when he returned to work. And they wonder why Americans are mad!
What machine shop? what type of work they do? The ones I know are very employee friendly. Even the dealer is this way they had no problems me taking a week when my girl was born. I came back and asked for a raise and they gave me one.
Forgot to add that the boss gets a new car every year and maintains it religiously but won't maintain business equipment or software and lowers wages because he says he can't afford to pay anyone. Yeah, right, throw it in our faces why don't you!
IS he the owner? if not he many not be able to choose the budget. and he gets paid his money and chooses to do with it as he sees fit.
if he is the owner. so what. He will drive himself out of business and when he does we will be broke from his spending habits.
I feel genuinely fortunate; I have a job (no raise in three years), good benefits, my house is almost paid for (small home equity loan), no kids to put through college (or have move back in with me), and reasonably good health after wife and I each had two major surgeries in the past two years.
And we haven't had a vacation in over a decade, probably won't get one this year either; I've used up almost all the leave I get taking care of family and parents.
That said, I really feel for people who have lost their jobs, and I can also understand why employers and companies with cash reserves will NOT reinvest in an environment of extremely uncertain regulation from the central government.
Obamacare has levied an almost unquantifiable burden on any future hiring - who's going to hire when there's this great boogie-man of mandatory health care of which no one knows the cost.
And when federal thugs can come into a business with guns drawn and confiscate $1M worth of materials of production (guitar fingerboards, Gibson guitars, TN) what business person in his or her right mind is going to expand production capacity>
This government is totally out of control, neither party offers meaningful relief, and the outlook continues for more-of-the-same ad nauseum.
And despite my personal proximity to falling off the edge - yes, I too live paycheck-to-paycheck, I do not believe that penalizing the successful to relieve those that are not successful through federal income redistribution is NOT the answer. Money and almost all wealth is extremely portable, and penalizing the "haves" will only drive them to other countries - just ask England how well it did when it's top tax bracket was 95%, and its rock star millionaires fled to America in droves as tax refugees.
I'm sorry but who are you?
No one that lives on planet earth in the united states could ever believe the stuff you have written unless they lived in a hole with ears and eyes stoppered.
You must be a plant by the Murdock organization
So, with winter coming on strong, instead of standing out in the cold, lets occupy Wall Street from indoors, at our computers, using social media to coordinate our efforts. I propose someone with time on their hands should start an organization called spankacorp.org. You have my permission to use the name and to register the domain name. Once a month, we can vote for the corporation we want to spank that month. The corporation that wins the most votes will be spanked. We can spank the corporation by closing accounts, not using their products, switching carriers if our contract is up, etc. Those of us who really are dead-set on standing out in the winter cold can protest in front of that particular corporation's buildings.
You are protesting the wrong people, protest the white house and vote out all socialists in 2012. Handing a capitalist economy over to socialists doesn't work out very well, their hearts just aren't in it.
turn off the television. let a little light in. you are spouting shock jocks from Fox. You can't seriously believe what you've written.
d
When Bloomberg Business week compared the state of working Americans I thought you have got to be smoking some serious crack to think salaries are on the upswing. The salaries being paid today are comparable to that of 1960.
And these morons are still saying the recession officially ended in 2009?! No matter, you can keep trying to push that on people but no one believes it. I guess they think if they keep saying it then it will actually happen or someone will actually believe it.
This country is in bad shape and it's only going to get worse. People can't sustain living on wages from the 60's where a loaf of bread cost 5 cents. I haven't had a raise in almost 2 years. But, I am thankful that I have a job. Even though I am underpaid and over worked my situation could be worse. All because of greed!!! Where's the logic?! I can barely make ends meet. I even quit smoking because I am broke and guess what?! I'M STILL BROKE!!!
why not take 1 dollar of each paycheck[taxes that is] and put it in a fund to bail out the mortgages .in one week you could pay 50+ million to keep homeowners in their homes. in the old days everyone helped their neighbor. lets use our taxes to buy back america.at just 1 dollar a week it is not only possible it is amazingly cheap.
Yes, that's what my great-grandparent's and my grandparent's generation did to some extent in the smaller communities they lived in.
Nowadays, these Ayn Rand Neo-Con Republicans don't believe in helping out their brothers or their neighbors. They believe that helping people in need is what liberals and altruists do. The right-wing believes in Social Darwinism; that only the financially fittest deserve to survive, and if you are suffering through no fault of your own -- as wealthy Herman Cain said over and over again: "It's YOUR fault!"
They try to compensate for this lack of ideological compassion for their fellow man by making people believe they are the most morally "Christian" people on the block.
What is wrong in believing in personal responsibility?
Auto, so it's all or nothing? Not to mention that there will always be regulations; it just pays to find out how they actually work and how they benefit the individual trying to live the American Dream.
That is the price of debt. Their are Christian Charity's that can help people distressed. but just like the Government it is not unlimited. If people did that $1 tax housing prices will be just like college. and would people just give all proffit to the government when selling their home? and when you die the property goes to the state? after all they paid for it.
I don't know how I feel about the idea of the tax, but what do you think about what caused this?
I think the next time Let them fail. and let them know that they wont be getting any more support from the Government.
So let the banks fail? It's acceptable to let a possible depression to happen, to let uninvolved people become possibly (according to many, probably) much, much worse off?
According to the government and the Social Security office, the cost of living has only gone up 3.6% from 3 years ago. Maybe we should index it to the amount of increases congress gives itself for salaries, offices, and its per diems and other perks
When oil was down to $75 a barrel I thought we would get some relief and now I see it is back up to $89 today for no good reason at all other than pure greed.
It has nothing to do with greed, it has everything to do with enviro-nazi's that block any attempt to allow us energy independence. The idiots are even blocking wind and solar sites!
wow. do you really believe this?
I guess we are not part of the 99 percent but the 93.4 percent if I read the voting correctly.
@zoo: The "99%" is nonsense anyway. Recent polls showed more like 50% support.
Well, it's comforting to know that our "fearless leaders" are all right. Maybe they'll let us wait at the back gate for scraps if we behave ourselves.
It was Dickens' Tale of Two Cities where the phrase "Let them eat grass" was coined. So! average American, start munching. Those political lawns arn't going to mow themselves ya know.
I got a 350% raise this past March. Well, kind of... I finished my degree, went from getting an RA stipend to a post-doc position. Not everyone is doing worse, but then, sometimes it's just because of circumstances independent of "who's in office" and "market conditions."
I'm busy darning my socks to try and get another year out of them.
but you people keep electing tax and spend democrats. let them keep printing money, devaluing the dollar so that the balance sheets of large corporations look good. Meanwhile holding interest rates near zero, banks love it because they can get cheap money from each other, but who really suffers? You do because your getting .25% interest on that savings, probly not enough to pay for the charges.
As long as they keep printing money they are taxing the poor through inflation for the benefits of banks. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!
Time to elect someone who knows what to do, Ron Paul 2012.
yup, no doubt. That little TARP thing was signed and demanded by a tax and spend Democrat...
Your comment starkly points out that you have no idea about economics and somehow imagine running the world economy is like balancing your check book.
The internet gives everyone voice whether or not they have any knowledge of what they speak.
You should get your facts straight moron...TARP was signed into law by George W Bush...You really should stop watching FOX News...
As you pay more to police the world your standard of living has to take a hit. Add in all of the useless (or harmful) agencies Dept Of (Energy and Education) and countless others that get their ounce of flesh from you it becomes clear that this is a self fulfilling prophecy.
My wife and I are doing quite well these days. We are currently retired at the age of 61 and 59 respectfully. My wife was a Registered Nurse for 30 years, and I had a dual career beginning with 20 years of service in the U.S Navy (as a submariner for most of that time), and later as a consultant in Emergency Management (primarily to National Laboratories and the Department of Energy). We put 5 children through
college, sold our home and virtually everything else we owned in 2009 at a
profit (in Denver, CO), and moved to the Republic of Panama. We have no debt – never really did have much debt other than a mortgage – and we left behind many of the problems facing most Americans today. We live a very comfortable life here in
Panama, and have wisely invested our money for the long haul that I manage personally. Not wishing to be political, but we need to stop the madness, and quit depending on local, State, and federal governments for a hand out and to solve all of our problems through some form of legislation (every law costs money – usually in more taxes). The trend the country is taking toward socialism and a welfare state is frightening. Have we learned nothing from the crisis in Greece, and in Europe overall. America needs to wake up and return to the principles that made it the best country on this earth!
Where do you live in Panama? From Denver too and now in Panama.