If not, you should. What's the results of the Bush Administration's mismanagement of the economy and the Republicans blocking the Obama administration's attempts to deal with it since then with a record number of filibusters? Well... real median income is down 7.1% since 1999.
So what that means, adjusted for inflation, is that you're getting less than 93 cents compared to what you got twelve years ago. So if you feel poorer, it's probably because you are poorer.
Oh yeah, forgot the next little tidbit: The nation's official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1% -- the highest it's been since the President George H.W. Bush, now that I think about it. Hmm, Republicans?
Of course, according to the right wing the poor in America aren't actually poor because they're mostly living indoors and have, like, actual indoor plumbing, so because they're not starving and dying of exposure they're not really poor despite, well, having no money, but that's just a little niggling detail to be ignored if there's a good talking point to be made, right? So it goes...
-- Badtux the WASF Penguin
Not only do we have less income, we have a greater debt burden to service with our fewer dollars.
ReplyDeletehttp://jazzbumpa.blogspot.com/2011/09/total-debt.html
Double Whammy.
WASF!
JzB
Plus they have a TV. Only rich people have TVs.
ReplyDeleteYes, the poor live like kings of old, which is how the Right excuses its aim of making America the poorest country in the world.
ReplyDeleteI'd be happy to trade my situation with some poor, overtaxed billionaire. I have low debt, own my house and have a good peon level job. I just wonder how this billionaire would like getting up at 430 in the morning to go to work for a megacorporation?
ReplyDeleteI liked Jon Stewart's line about the poor people who have such luxuries as refrigerators. I believe he called them "food chillin motherf*ckers" I mean really!? Are we going to begrudge poor people refrigerators? Sure millions of people live without them in the world but come on!
ReplyDeleteI also have to laugh about the TV thing. I have three color TVs in my house and all of them are so old that they are nearly useless in that they can't pick up the free broadcast channels anymore. I tried to donate them to a local charity that gives household items to poor people and they refused them because they have too many TV sets! (They did take my old VCR and tapes though).