They drive cars, but seldom new ones. They earn paychecks, but not big ones. Many own homes. Most pay taxes. Half are married, and nearly half live in the suburbs. None are poor, but many describe themselves as barely scraping by.
Down but not quite out, these Americans form a diverse group sometimes called “near poor” and sometimes simply overlooked — and a new count suggests they are far more numerous than previously understood.
When the Census Bureau this month released a new measure of poverty, meant to better count disposable income, it began altering the portrait of national need. Perhaps the most startling differences between the old measure and the new involves data the government has not yet published, showing 51 million people with incomes less than 50 percent above the poverty line. That number of Americans is 76 percent higher than the official account, published in September. All told, that places 100 million people — one in three Americans — either in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it.
After a lost decade of flat wages and the worst downturn since the Great Depression, the findings can be thought of as putting numbers to the bleak national mood — quantifying the expressions of unease erupting in protests and political swings. They convey levels of economic stress sharply felt but until now hard to measure.
WASHINGTON - The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits. Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent — a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more. Congress is expected to decide by year's end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further. The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four. Yet for a growing share of the unemployed, a vote in Congress to extend the benefits to 99 weeks is irrelevant. They've had no job for more than 99 weeks. They're no longer eligible for benefits.
Money is tight, and everyone is cutting costs. But it's all about knowing where to cut; the family will skip the vacation, but doesn't try to save on clothes by turning the neighbor's cats into loincloths.
Unfortunately, when large organizations try to cut costs or figure out new sources of revenue, they tend to take the kitty loincloth approach. We're talking about ...
Feel like the walls are closing in on us? Money not going as far as it used to? Well, you're not alone, and you're not imagining things. While we bicker back and forth amongst ourselves about why the economy is fubar, the pure and simple truth is kept hidden from view, just enough, to let the screw job happen while most Americans are none the wiser. It's not the foreign aid, it's not welfare for the poor, it's not the huge military budget. It all comes down to the simple fact that we operate in a debt-based economy. It doesn't matter if you use a credit card or take out a mortgage. Even if you are a cash and carry guy/gal, every single dollar in your pocket represents debt, not value. Sound crazy? Well it's the truth.
Take the next 47 minutes to watch this stunning video. In that time you will learn more about economics than most people learn in a lifetime of study. Economics is not as complex as we are all led to believe. We have all been duped, so don't be surprised if you are a little pissed off to by the time you are done watching and learning.
(The video takes a few seconds to get going, there's a long black screen leading in.)
If anyone would like to own the DVD, including Money as Debt II: Promises unleashed, you can order directly from the film-makers website...
I used to be part of the once a month crowd. I would go to Walmart and stock up on all my canned and dry goods, lots of frozen stuff too. Then throughout the month I would hit my local supermarket for fresh meats and produce. That changed for me this past winter. Suddenly, I saw a big rise in prices, and many of the products I used were no longer there. It was very sudden too. I mean from one month to the next. It only took me one visit and I decided I could do better stretching my limited cash and newly awarded allotment of foodstamps at my two local supermarkets, as long as I shopped with the sale flyer in hand. I haven't been back to Walmart since for groceries.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Wal-Mart's core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday. "We're seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure," Duke said at an event in New York. "There's no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact." Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in. Lately, they're "running out of money" at a faster clip, he said. "Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year," Duke said. "This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.
This is a compilation of three articles, shared by No Joke Broke, used by permission.
Get a job you f@@kin' bum!
That's what I hear all the time. That's the answer to America's financial woes. That's the answer when I complain about how difficult it has been to live on food stamps the past few months. Get a fuckin' job. Well let me tell you folks, I am one of the long-term unemployed for reasons that go well beyond my resume skills. I got my first real job when I was 14, I have some college, two professional licenses, and a wide variety of work experience from labor, to service, to management. Yet I have not worked full-time in almost three years now. I even dumped five grand on re-training. What a fuckin waste that was. I have filled out thousands of applications, made thousands of phone calls, forwarded my resume thousands of times. Not once, not even once did I get a call to come in for an interview. The handful of calls I did get were courtesy calls from companies basically telling me to stop bothering them because they were not going to hire me.
The other day I had some jagoff get wise with me and said that McDonald's was hiring. In fact they were. A huge hiring blitz. They intended to add a whopping 50,000 people to their national 400,000 person strong workforce. I was one of more than a 1,000,000 people who applied. Hoping, praying, that I would be one of the lucky ones who would get hired part time to scrub tables and mop out the toilets for a wage that won't even pay for the car insurance to get to and from that job. And like so many others, I did not get the job.
You can check out how Bloomberg reported on it at this link:
Half of new jobs last month came from McD's hiring blitz
Sounds to me like a huge, orchestrated public relations stunt. A conspiracy to lead average Americans to believe that things really aren't that bad.
Let's really think about this for a minute. Not only did this one-time hiring blitz account for half the new jobs created last month, but it did little to offset the increase in the official unemployment rate which rose to 9.1%. So these "added jobs" are still a net loss.
Add to this the fact that we are talking about minimum wage part-time jobs. Hardly the sort of job that someone can live on. Nevertheless, only 1 in 20 people who applied got the job.
Here is a link to the article of how the latest numbers are being translated:
After 'feel-good' hiring blitz in US, McDonald's to replace workers with touch-screens
You can bet your ass this will be coming to the U.S. sooner than later. Our supermarkets have already put a hiring freeze on cashiers as they replace them with automated checkout lines. So as it turns out, the April hiring blitz really was just another P.R. propaganda stunt in order to get people feeling better about the economy on the one hand, and giving an excuse to have no sympathy for the poor on the other, as the number of unemployed and food stamp recipients continues to swell nationwide. A band-aid on a bullet hole.
McDonald's to Replace Cashiers with Touch Screen Computers
McDonald's restaurants in Europe will soon be swapping the chain's legendary "service with a smile" with "service with a beep." European McDonald's restaurants are preparing to replace cashiers with touch screen computers at terminals where customers will be able to order up their hamburgers and fries and pay with credit cards.
About 7,000 of the fast food franchise's locations in the United Kingdom will be fitted with the touch screen technology, which aims to make the McDonald's experience more convenient and accommodating.
The touch screen method of ordering will improve efficiency and make the average transaction three to four seconds faster for each customer, Steve Easterbrook, president of the European branch of McDonald's, told the Financial Times. Easterbrook didn't provide a date for when the touch screens, which were inspired by a trip to Japan, will be introduced to UK McDonald's restaurants.
The new terminals will also phase out cash as an accepted payment method, as the machines will only take credit and debit cards. No word yet on whether McDonald's in the United States will be next in line to replace cashiers with computers, but the addition doesn't seem to be part of the ongoing $1-billion makeover of the company's U.S. restaurants.
How can I compete with someone in the workplace who will work for free? Why should I even bother?
FORTUNE -- With nearly 14 million unemployed workers in America, many have gotten so desperate that they're willing to work for free. While some businesses are wary of the legal risks and supervision such an arrangement might require, companies that have used free workers say it can pay off when done right.
"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary, so they're going to outperform, they're going to try to please, they're going to be creative," says Kelly Fallis, chief executive of Remote Stylist, a Toronto and New York-based startup that provides Web-based interior design services. "From a cost savings perspective, to get something off the ground, it's huge. Especially if you're a small business."
In the last three years, Fallis has used about 50 unpaid interns for duties in marketing, editorial, advertising, sales, account management and public relations. She's convinced it's the wave of the future in human resources. "Ten years from now, this is going to be the norm," she says...
