The Recession Question
The rumor is the recession ended a couple years ago. No one told me. The claim is that the recession officially ended in June 2009. Apparently I missed a couple years of my life because I am one of the 99% that find life a constant struggle. Most Americans are still floundering with underwater mortgages, falling incomes and many, like me are still hunting for that ever elusive job.
But not everyone is floundering. The rich, America’s 1 percent had a fantastic year. Posting gains upward of 93% in the first year of the recovery. And the rest of us? Not so much. According to Emmanuel Saez and the World Top Income Database the bottom 90% lost $127. All told, the top 1% Average income for 2009 was $913,451. The other 99% tallied $41,696 and of that 99%, ninety percent (90%) had an Average income of $29,967. That was in 2009, the year the recession officially ended.
By June 2011 the median household income was just shy of 50k at $49,909(3) falling a total of 6.7% for the year. This is significant because during the recession years, household income only fell 3.2%. To sum that up, even though the recession has ended, household incomes are still falling and the only people making any money are the top 1%. And they are making a lot of it.
The other misconception that unemployment is better, however jobs are down. . Overall, unemployment fell from 9.1 in August of 2011 to 8.2 here in April and yet we are still bleeding jobs. We added just 120,000 jobs in March. On average we need to 150,000 jobs to stay at a medium level . I imagine that the deficit is a direct reflection of people getting bumped off of unemployment and basically just living in limbo. Welcome to my world.
The point in all of this is I really don’t see things getting better. We are told we are turning the corner and yet all I hear from people are stories of hardship and loss. My neighbors were both just laid off last week. Both of them. In the same week. What are the odds?
This is just another tale among many however. The empty houses in my neighborhood tell another tale. I live in one of the bigger cities in Colorado and yet in my neighborhood there are a slew of empty houses. In Colorado, there was one foreclosure in November for every 575 households in the state — making it 11th in the nation in foreclosures. Colorado boasts a population of 5.1 million. 68% of those people own houses (National Average is 66.6%) making the number of foreclosed houses in November 6031. Over six thousand people lost their homes right before the holidays.
The sad truth
The sad truth is that unless something drastic changes, I will never be in the 1%. I will live my life without ever having the sense of security that the upper class enjoys. My life will be a fight and I will go down swinging telling myself that I might not have money, but I have character. Moxie. Embracing the adage, “that which don’t kill me only makes me stronger.”
My issue with this is that people will tell you that if you are persistent you will make it. That everyone has an opportunity to succeed. I ask you now, does anyone truly believe this? Is there not a reason we consider this the Top 1%? If you break it down, that is 1 out of every 100 people make it. One person gets that lucky break. One person opens the door when opportunity knocks. It is staggering to think of all the things that have to go right to climb the ladder into that very elite club.
What separates the Gates and Buffets from the honor role student or the average Joe? In their respective fields do they not work unequivocally? Are the Gates and Buffets geniuses or simply lucky?
The entire message is confused. As society we idolize the rich and infamous, watching their dance through life while dreaming about what we do if we were so celebrated. We make them heroes when in fact, the true heroes are the small people. The country might serve the rich but it is the average person who make the world go round. The trash men, the janitors, and every person who holds and loves their job. Every person who does the jobs that I couldn’t and every person who is sitting there working desperately to keep the pieces of their fractured lives together as they slowly lose everything. These are the people who need to be rewarded.
We need to do the ethical thing and get these people back to work. Appreciate them and reward them financially. Nothing says thank you like a little extra money. Find a way to relieve the worries of losing their homes. Every home lost is another dream broke. Maybe for a while, we need to stop paying the 1% percent and start finding a way to reclaim the other ninety-nine. We need to ease the burden and remember that just because we claim that rope is slack, for many of us, we only feel the noose getting tighter.
Main Site
Sources:
Foreclosure rates in Colorado drop – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_19558978#ixzz1tUaTSomN
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2010.pdf
http://g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/topincomes/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/us/recession-officially-over-us-incomes-kept-falling.html?_r=1
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