Saturday, 24 January 2015

15 Scary Facts About The US Economy

1. 1 in 5 American families are totally unemployed- that is no family member holds a job, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics.

2. Research from UC Berkeley academic Emmanuel Saez shows that while incomes of the top 1% increased by over 11% since the end of the recession, the other 99% saw a decrease in salary of 0.8%.

3. Multinational Corporations have accumulated almost two trillion dollars in accounts outside of the USA in order to avoid domestic taxes.

4. The proportion of US families holding ownership in small business reached an all-time low of 11.7% in 2013.

5. According to the University of Arizona, two years after graduation almost half of college graduates are still relying on parents or family members for financial support, due to a lack of prosperous employment opportunities.

6. Median household income has fallen for the past 5 consecutive years. In today's terms, the average household wage was almost $88,000 in 2003- a decade later, this figure was just $56,335- a 36% decline.

7. US National Debt grew by over a trillion dollars in 2014.

8. The percentage of Americans who own their homes (64.8%) is the lowest since 1995.

9. An estimated 49 million Americans have limited/uncertain access to a sufficient amount of food.

10. During 2013, the Chinese sold $440bn worth of exports to the US, who sold $121bn to China, creating the largest recorded trade deficit in history. 

11. In 2012, there were more American women relying on food stamps than women with full time jobs.

12. One third of Americans would not be able to afford more than a month of mortgage payments if they lost their job.

13. In 2013, female full-time workers were paid on average 78% of that which their male counterparts were paid.

14. Between 2001 and 2011, over 56,000 American manufacturing facilities were shut down- a rate of 15 per day.

15. American consumer debt has increased by 1700% (multiplied by 17!) in the past 40 years.

Sources for these facts can be found in links within.
Mohammad Lone Editor