There was a set of astonishing statistics in the New York Post today, in an article by Michael Snyder:
According to a 2009 poll, 61% of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, up from 43% in 2007.
43% of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement. 36% of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings. 24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans. An analysis of income tax data by the Congressional Budget Office found that the top 1% of US households own nearly twice as much of America’s corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
Only the top 5% of households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
For the first time in US history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
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.
As of 2007, the bottom 80% of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
The bottom 40% of income earners now collectively own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.
Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17% when compared with 2008.
The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
More than 40% of Americans who are employed now work in often low-paying service jobs.
More than 40 million Americans are on food stamps.
The number of millionaires in the US rose a whopping 16% to 7.8 million in 2009, despite the financial crisis.
About 21% of all children are living below the poverty line in 2010 — the highest rate in 20 years.
The top 10% percent of Americans now take in approximately 50% of the income.