The working class appears to be in recession
By working class, I mean roughly the bottom 80%. By recession, I mean things are getting worse.
There is no official, agreed upon statistic for my claim. So I can't prove beyond a doubt that the working class is in recession.
Nor am I saying the economy in general is in recession. After all, the wealthiest three people have as much wealth as the bottom 50%, so the GDP can rise even when the bottom 80% sinks.
That being said, a strong case can be made that the working class is currently in recession.
#1 Wages and debt
Seventy-eight percent of full-time workers said they live paycheck to paycheck, up from 75 percent last year, according to a recent report from CareerBuilder.
Overall, 71 percent of all U.S. workers said they're now in debt, up from 68 percent a year ago, CareerBuilder said.
#2 Tapped out
A scary little statistic is buried beneath the US economy's apparent stability: Consumer-debt levels are now well above those seen before the Great Recession.
As of June, US households were more than half a trillion dollars deeper in debt than they were a year earlier, according to the latest figures from the Federal Reserve. Total household debt now totals $12.84 trillion — also, incidentally, about two-thirds of gross domestic product...
"Most consumers, especially those in the bottom 80%, are tapped out," he told Business Insider.
If it feels like the rent keeps going up, you’re not alone: The share of U.S. disposable income that went toward such spending totaled 3.81 percent in the third quarter, marking the highest share in data going back almost six decades.
Rising shelter costs have accounted for most of the inflation in the U.S. during this economic expansion. While part of the rising rental share of spending may result from falling homeownership in recent years, the price index for rental of tenant-occupied nonfarm housing rose 3.7 percent in the year through September, according to data published Monday by the Commerce Department, near the fastest pace seen in the last decade.
Eighteen percent of respondents couldn’t pay the full rent due in at least one of the past three months, according to the poll of 40,000 renters. Of those who have registered for the listing site this year, 3.3 percent said they had been evicted in the past, up from 2.8 percent in 2015.
...Seven percent of renter households failed to pay all or part of the rent in the preceding three months, according to the survey, which didn’t include a question on delinquent payments in 2015.
The three take-aways from this are a) the working class is struggling, b) their financial condition has deteriorated over the past 3 month to a year, and c) the lower you go, the worse people have it.
Consider homelessness in L.A.
The number of homeless people in Los Angeles has jumped to a new record, as city officials grapple with a humanitarian crisis of proportions remarkable for a modern American metropolis.
Municipal leaders said that a recent count over several nights found 55,188 homeless people living in a survey region comprising most of Los Angeles County, up more than 25% from last year.
And New York.
When Rudy Giuliani entered City Hall in 1994, 24,000 people lived in shelters. About 31,000 lived in them when Mike Bloomberg became mayor in 2002. When Bill de Blasio entered City Hall in 2014, 51,500 did. The number of homeless people now in shelters is around 63,000.
The number of homeless children in our country has increased by 60 percent since 2009.
The recent hurricanes will give the GDP a boost, but it is also another body-blow to the working class.
In tracking its internal debit- and credit-card data, Bank of America observed that much of the September upside surprise in consumption was propelled by building materials and gasoline. Immediate repairs, rushed deliveries of goods and supplies, and storm-victim relocations undoubtedly drove these sales.
In October, Bank of America's data showed payback in these areas but strength in furniture stores and discretionary goods. That also makes sense given how many of those who were dislocated have begun to move back into their homes or outfit new, temporary living arrangements.
That's the good news. Here's the bad news.
In September, according to Black Knight, the number of mortgages either past due or in foreclosure rose by 214,000, or 9 percent, compared with August....
October’s numbers have brought the picture more clearly into focus. More than 229,000 past-due mortgages are tied to the storms. Hurricane Irma accounted for 163,000 and Harvey, 66,000.
The economy has also enjoyed a rush of car sales as sufficiently-collateralized and insured drivers immediately replaced vehicles destroyed by the storms. According to the latest retail data, car sales slowed to a 0.7 percent growth rate in October, far below September’s blistering 4.6-percent pace.
At the same time, at 3.4 percent, the personal saving rate implies many households have depleted a good portion of their safety cushions. The current rate is not only the lowest since 2007, but one of the lowest on record since 1900.
Hoisington Asset Management’s chief economist Lacy Hunt said that in real per capita terms, disposable income fell at a 0.2 percent rate in the third quarter, 0.5 percent below where it stood a year prior.
Wall Street is still going gangbusters, and that's what the news media and the wealthy care about.
But the 80% or so of the rest of the nation are not just struggling, but sinking further.
Comments
I see lots of places saying they are hiring
only to find out they're hiring people for minimum wage/less than 25 hour a week jobs. No benefits, natch.
My daughter has over $300 a month in student loan payments and that's on the low end of the scale. She has friends whose payments exceed $1000 a month, plus it's hard to find an apartment for less than $1K a month in many cities. She was a summa cum laude grad in biomed engineering and was lucky to find a 2 year "gig economy job" not really in her field or she could afford to pay her debt service. And people blame millennials for not buying homes, if you can believe that bs.
As for poorer neighborhoods, it is not a recession, it a depression. Unless you make in excess of $85k a year, you are losing money after adjusting for real inflation (i.e., all the costs the government does not include in their estimate of inflation). And we all know with the way the financial industry has been unleashed to do whatever risky shit they want to do, we are headed off a cliff sooner rather than later.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
I'm trying to stay away
from the "is it a Depression" debate (i.e. Yes, it is), and focusing on "are things getting worse right now".
Euclid of Alexandria
"Any two things, both being equal to the same third thing, are also equal to each other." -- Euclid of Alexandria
Any of the factors you mentioned in the Essay, including the Depression fact, are all equal to "things are getting worse right now" for the bottom 80% or more.
Therefore, they are all equally true.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
The technical term suitable
would be "Sucky Hopeless Economy."
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
I think you're onto something regarding debt and rent,
on the other hand, jobs seem abundant, albeit not necessarily good ones. I wouldn't say it's a recession yet, but the ropes are fraying.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
If the jobs don't pay enough to live
then all the jobs in the world won't stop a working class recession.
Debt levels, savings rates, and default rates are indicators of the larger problem
@dervish And, obviously, rent and
And, obviously, rent and homelessness.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
No where to run, babay, nowhere to hide...
...
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Heh.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
@divineorder I'm not sure Mr. Ryavec
I'm not sure Mr. Ryavec knows that he's the devil.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The middle class doesn't care about the working class
only enough to stop their own downward slide in to the same stinking ditch. Trickle down class war, no policies start from the bottom and work up, always from the middle. Charity for all the rest, just eat cake. "That's the system.".
California political class is so far out of touch it is sickening. Behold the geniuses charged with discussing affordable housing in Sacramento: http://www.calchannel.com/affordable-housing-panel/
Around 35 or 40 minutes someone finally mentions "housing element", and "why are no housing element laws enforced?". ding
*splat* After all these years, that is where they are going to start? Fuuuuuuuuudge! And those are the "thinkers" with the PhDs and MBAs and all that other expensive paper crap. Too many academics and lobbyists, not enough reality checks. They are part of the homelessness industry now, what would they do without the poor homeless to collect data on and get more subsidies? Corrupt professional class of Ds and Rs both. good luck
It looks a lot like a refugee crisis to me, but the refugees are my neighbors, it is a war on the poor. You will not read about the depopulation in the news, it is bad for business. There are a lot of emotional "strong" stories to keep the hamster wheel spinning, social media template included.
Tent village in southwest Santa Rosa expands after downtown homeless camps cleared out
Sonoma County is experiencing even more PTSD now, it is everywhere.
Mental health issues increasing as Sonoma County enters new phase of fires’ aftermath
The middle-class fire homeless are worthy now, the thousands who were homeless before them, well they are still worthless detritus in the minds of most. Smothered in D-Values.
Skid Row Depression
Thanksgiving help for the homeless: 'We haven't seen numbers like this since the Great Depression'
Pretending they care once a year:
http://beta.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-thanksgiving-20171123...
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
@Meteor Man It's possible Van Dyke
It's possible Van Dyke might actually care. the others, well...
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That was exactly how I read this story
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
@eyo That's the sad part, a
That's the sad part, a lot of the working class used to be middle class.
We are a stupid country.
And we've been in a depression for the last 40 years because we've been robbed blind since 1980.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
And people blame millennials
Millennials are to blame for killing it seems every industry that is sagging or just outright dying.
I'm doing my part as a millennial.
But more to your point... I mean, yes, buy homes with what? Literally, with what? The min. wage job? It's just simple math at this point. Folks my age, unless they have a great job, are forced to room with 2-4 other people. That's 3-5 people per apartment/rented house.
Which, break that down, is 3-5 individual homes/condos that aren't being bought. Why? Because we can't afford to. Simple as that.
What exactly are we to do?
Told can't expect min. wage jobs to take care of you (those are starter jobs, work your way up bullshit). Ok so then that goes to...
Get a better job. Well fantastic, let's just go to the job tree and grab one. Oh wait, vast majority of new jobs are temporary, gig economy and min. wage jobs. Cool beans. So then that goes to...
Go to college. Ok, great, so that can be tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt with still bleak job prospects. We are then told we shouldn't have gone to college because of the outrageous debt and it is our own fault. Which brings us back to...
Why aren't millennials buying things?
And if you're a disabled millennial, you're double fucked.
You can't even get a min. wage job. And even when you do, you're part time no matter what and your hours are the first to be cut during 'slow season'. Advancement? Yeah right. Disabled workers make the service industry image look like shit (so they say). This isn't just my experience either.
Education? Sure, I got 2 degrees and still have yet to have anything to show for it because most businesses where I live here in Flawer-Duh refuse to hire someone who can't fuckin' drive. Move? Can't. Don't have the money. And besides, if I could, I'd leave this stupid shit country and never look back....only most countries won't take 'Murican economic refugees. Can't say I blame 'em.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
@The Aspie CornerEducation? Sure, I got 2
I hear you on education. I'm hoping to get into grad school to get my doctorate, but that's always a challenge. I need grad school because my degree is kind of a stepping stone degree ha. You can't do much with it purely with a bachelors. Put, I knew that going in and always had grad school as the end goal in sight. Just still sucks :/
Regarding moving to another country...I've had the thought. I've only been to one first-world country and that was Japan. Thing is I loved it there. As odd as it sounds, I felt more "free" there. Odd thing for an American to say. Felt like I didn't have this toxic weight on my shoulders while I was there.
Blaming the millennials is pure utter BS
it's identity politics at it's finest, forget about the
banks stop loaning, HC that cost way to much for way to little
phones that cost a grand, student loans @7% while banks borrow
for free. etc.etc.etc.
Outside of the elite who are rewarded by privatization the
rest of us are getting screwed in every which way.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
@ggersh Blaming the millennials
Just to be clear, and this is my own tired state and perhaps I'm misreading you, but I'm in perfect agreement with you. I am a millennial, and reading various articles about how millennials are killing cars, malls, movies, homes, etc. etc. is cute but also horrendously misguided. Folks are wrongly blaming us for the woes of almost every industry because they refuse to look at the real reasons why those industries are either sagging or dying.
Yes, we have different perspectives and tastes. But also, we are guided by well our pocketbook (now that is old school). I mean all those articles could be answered with the same answer.
"Why aren't millennials buying homes?" Answer: Can't afford it.
"Why aren't millennials buying cars?" Answer: Can't afford it.
and on and on. I read one article from car makers saying they are ramping up their marketing department to figure out how to really get at us millennials. They are just stumped at how to advertise to us millennials. Well, hey folks, come up with fun advertising all you want. Zero money is still zero money even after some crazy ad blitz.
All the creative minds in the advertising department can't change my bank account. Would I like a new car or recently used one? Yes, because my current old car is kind of slugging along but not certain for how long. But I can't afford to change it out so it is what it is. Drive it till it utterly dies.
No Strife you didn't misread me.
and all that you wrote in response I totally agree
with
is so true
, the millennialslike every other generation is hurting, surprisingly yes
it's every generation, so it's not a horizontal fight but
a vertical fight (class warfare).
What really irked me was I was going thru the channels and
it hit the shit Maher show and they were blaming millennials
for the election and I nearly lost it. The BS machine is
spewing so much utter BS so I'm thinking it's almost time
to hunker down, the empire is crumbling, whether or not we
do a Humpty is a whole different question.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
I saw a thing on Tumblr a while back
spent an hour looking for it again but couldn't find it; anyway it went something like this:
Marketing dept/company: Why aren't millennials buying our product?!
Millennials: Have you tried lowering your prices?
Marketing dept/company: Do what now?
This shit is bananas.
@Strife Delivery
Lol, didn't Ford used to pay workers enough that they could afford to buy Ford cars? Funny how employers can;t figure out basic math/economics anymore, only not actually funny ha-ha...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
What?
You never heard of Liar's Loans? Show a little initiative like your older brothers and sisters.
They can't afford the truth.
Any 'official' report of this nature would erode MSM sponsors' confidence in the consumer economy. This is the kind of report the MSM literally can't afford.
Mike Taylor
Living stats vs. abstract job stats
Very true. The surveys of how people are living, like how many are paying their rent on time, are much closer to the reality that most people face than abstract stats about employment. And those stats reveal that the majority of the nation is under or teetering.
In the summer of 2008
when we were already six months into recession, the politicians, economists, and media was still debating whether a recession was going to happen.
Serfs Up!
When it come time for pitchforks and torches, we'll finally realize why they've militarized the police. We're becoming a nicer version of China.
The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.
We got a kinder gentler machine gun hand
Except, I'm not so certain about the nicer part....
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZJzM7x2Cg4]
The good thing is that
we working class people are too stupid to know we can't make ends meet. Me, I'm just looking for politicians who'll stand up for my heritage and protect me from feeling some things.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
Oh, look, I can get min. wage jobs in a lot more services.
Both democrats and republicans are trying to hide behind employment numbers which read like Soviet era farm reports. I fully expect debtor prisons to return. Actually, in a way they are here: just look at what the residents of Ferguson had to endure.
Ferguson sued for municipal fines & jailing those who can't pay
https://www.rt.com/usa/230739-ferguson-fine-jail-lawsuit/
@MrWebster
If I may, I'd like to add:
https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/race-and-criminal-justice/deb...
https://www.npr.org/2014/05/21/313118629/supreme-court-ruling-not-enough...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/as-economy-flails-debtors-prisons-thrive/
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/debtors-prison-legal-in-more-than-one...
So there will likely be continuing job openings in debt collection as more people continue to go under - isn't that lovely employment news?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Jimmy Dore and co. BURY Real Life Eric Cartman.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VJaPYm1SeI]
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.