Hey, everyone! The recession in the economy ended last year. Isn’t that great? I think it’s awesome! We’re not poor anymore.
Um … really?
Click here to check out a chart from SentierResearch. It’s okay … click … I’ll wait for you.
See that red line? How it plummeted down there at the end? That represents the average American income. And did you see the black line, the one that rose? That was the unemployment rate. I’m not so sure that the recession is really over.
But then I’m led to wonder something else. The numbers on the graph may be a little bit misleading – it’s a mighty big plummet, but we started at an income of around a hundred thousand and dropped to ninety. You know, I have to be honest … I only know a couple of people who make that kind of money. What has the economy done for those of us (cough cough) in a lower-income bracket?
Researchers say that households who made $55,309 in December of 2007, when the recession began, are now making an average of $49,909, which is down $3,609 — or 6.7 percent.
Our economy is not rebounding, and the people are becoming soured on the fallacy that it is. People who have lost their jobs and have been hired elsewhere often take a pay cut of 17% on average. Princeton economics professor Henry S. Farber, who came up with that statistic, said that this downturn is “fundamentally different” from most previous downturns. He said he didn’t think the recession had really ended because job losers are having more difficulty finding full-time jobs.
I would have to agree with that, Professor. When our unemployment rate is so high, when families struggle to learn how to live on such greatly reduced incomes, I would say that the recession is most definitely not over, despite what optimistic economists and politicians might have to say.
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