Wage Statistics Released - 51% Americans make less than 30k/year

You can find the report that the Social Security Administration just released right here (www.ssa.gov).

• -38 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000 last year.
• -51 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.
• -62 percent of all American workers made less than $40,000 last year.
• -71 percent of all American workers made less than $50,000 last year.

Looks like the middle class is being swallowed. Holy crap! Are you feeling the pain? So far I am well fed and sheltered with great health insurance to cover my cancer treatment, and that's all that really matters to me. I live in California, San Jose where making 100k/year is necessary to survive but hard to live by if you're materialistic. I don't think those making 30k/year here are enjoying the comfort they live in. Most of us live in apartments with houses being really expensive and not worth the mortgage. I find it very sad that I am in category wage of those in the hundreds of thousands in America today compared to millions and tens of millions in America suffering from poverty. That's a huge wage gap.

Sadly, the current federal poverty level for a family of 5 is $28,410. No wonder the baby boom era is dead.

I found the math done here. You can cross check it yourself with a calculator to confirm.

If anything the best solution is to decrease the tax rate on millionaires so the wealth can trickle down.

That doesn't happen.

And yes TC the middle class is disappearing. And government doesn't care. They allow businesses and the wealthy to hide assets and avoid taxes. They let jobs walk. Soon it will be like France before the revolution.

Indeed. If we've learned anything, it's that rich people are the most generous.

Those 51% should know that their jobs aren't meant to be permanent. They should have ALL went to school and they'd all be making far more!

In all honesty this is such a joke. There should always be a happy medium to wages in our country, and no one is implying we pay everyone 40k a year, but half of the country making under 30k is just gross. How do you tell someone to go get an education and get out of poverty when they're making shit in the first place. The poor don't have the tools at their disposal to break free like the well off do.

I think a huge part of the problem is that we're not giving people the education they need to qualify for decent paying jobs. With college becoming so obscenely expensive we're raising an entire generation of people we are only qualified for minimum wage. Great if you're the greedy shit who needs cheap labor bad news for a nation in the long run.

There are plenty of opportunities for people to go to college. Part of the problem is the lack of commitment in many students. You practically need to spoon-feed them because they have no initiative whatsoever.

Take my Systems Analysis class a long time ago. We started out with some 30+ students. By the time the semester was done, we were down to nine. The moment it got tedious, a large number dropped out. It was a pain in the ass because the course involved group work.

To me, the above is the real problem with higher education in the US.

Of course there are plenty of opportunities, but then again a lot of those are shit too. For profit colleges prey on poor people all the time, just look at the default statistics. College is also much more expensive in the US than abroad and state budget cuts aren't helping the situation. I'm fine with telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps but we have to give them boots in the first place. If you're poor the cost of school is simply more prohibitive than for people in higher income brackets. Their only options seem to be go FURTHER in debt, which brings me back to the first point of for profit schools promising jobs and leaving them with little opportunities and only debt.

Its obviously a complex issue at heart but there are some ugly facets that are staring us glaringly in the face. The US doesn't have a system in place that makes it easy to jump income brackets. If you're born poor you're statistically likely to stay poor, if you're rich you're most likely going to stay rich. Mobility in the US is stacked against the poor.

You could always do what I did and join the military for 4 years, work in a technical field, hate life for a while, then get out and get a job making 70K+ a year along with a free college education.

Not saying it works for everyone but that's what I did.

I have no problem with having tuition paid for armed service people. I think its a great idea.

I don't know about that. Cost of living in San Jose isn't that high at all, especially compared to neighboring SF, or LA or SD. I would say you would not only be able to survive on 60k a year but survive well.

I noticed the same in college in the 90's. I even had a group project where half my team said they don't do work outside the classroom because that's what they pay professors for. They weren't there the next semester. Out of 32 people who started the programming course when I did, 7 of us graduated.

But that's neither here nor there. Regardless of the education level of the populace those low-paying jobs are gonna have to be filled. They're vital. People working 40 hours a week shouldn't have to choose between rent and food.

There's a few reasons for this.

- Corporate greed; more money going to the top 1%

- Outsourcing

- Increased global competition.

- (One thing I never see mentioned) Robots and computer programs. Guess what the most common job in the U.S. is right now? Truck driver, 3 million men are employed in this job and are generally paid fairly well. Robots and AI are fairly close to self driving cars. What's going to happen when 3 million people are suddenly out of a job?

The middle class is dying because industrial jobs are dying. Those are the jobs that built the middle class. But it's hard to compete with countries that pay their workers 25cents an hour. Not sure what the solution is.

@LJS9502_basic: what happened in france?

Going to school (I assume you mean college) doesn't always guarantee you the high paying job. I never went to college and for a better part of my working life I was making more than most college grads that I knew. Having a degree is only a small part of the whole picture. Hard work will determine who does well in life financially.

I am in the 51% as of now. Unfortunately, I lost my job and fell on hard times (still working thru them). I know that this is temporary and I will get through this difficult part of my life. As such, it's terrible to make the assumption that because these people may lack a college education, that they're any less of a worker than those that were fortunate enough to attend college.

@servomaster:

A bloody revolution where the borgiuous were beheaded.

Good times...

Close the tax loopholes and spend the billions it brings in on more social programs for those under a certain income.

Also, American's should be blaming themselves for creating an economy based on mostly cheap, imported goods. If people were more willing to pay for home-grown goods and services, more money would stay in the country, and more people would have better paying jobs (as the skills required would be in higher demand on US soil, and corporations wouldn't be allowed to pay slave-labour rates).

Rent + 40% tax + food + debt. Yeah, it does cost a lot. They keep raising the rent every year. I don't live in the east side, I live in Santa Clara county. Average household income is about 117k.

Good things come to those who work.

I grew up solid middle class, the son of a construction worker.

I went to school, got my masters in education administration. Through my hard work during the summers of my teaching job when I was off I was offered another position with a company way out of the realm of Education. My wife an I's combined income is over 200 grand a year now.

It doesn't matter what your degree is in. A college degree is just a sign that you are willing to grind your way through the bullshit and do what needs to be done.

Company's will recognize that. You'll be rewarded.

I guess my wife's relatives who are fairly recent immigrants (none have been in country over 10 years) are doing something right. They started out with minimum wage jobs, pooled their resources together, and then set up a managed care company which is currently booming. They got recommendations from their clients which helped win a state contract. They're doing pretty well.

@HoolaHoopMan: It doesn't matter if people didn't get an education. If someone is working 40 hours a week, they should damn well be making livable wages. This is absurd.

Quoted for motherfucking truth

half the people in the country make less than the median income

it's total bullshit!

I don't think that has anything to do with the population at large but rather that higher education has been systematically pushed as a necessary stepping stone to a better life. Not everyone is cut out for a college degree and an appropriate job for such a costly, formal education and a lot of industries where huge portions of the populace have thrived have been moved overseas or are dying due to automation.

Some decades ago one working adult could support a family of four, own 2 cars, pay off a mortgage, take a vacation every year all while owning only a high school degree and working in any factory. You simply can't do that anymore and when kids are told from a young age that everyone needs a degree, no one values one.

I would beg to differ. My ex wife has a Bachelors in English. The best she has ever done is work at a coffee shop. She thinks she deserves a high paying job because she earned a degree in English except no one will hire her because she doesn't have a skill set in anything beyond menial bullshit.

Serves her right though. She's almost the dumbest bitch I've ever met.

I disagree. Sure it's a problem, but there are some bigger causes for it. I feel that those students that drop the moment the going gets tough are a sign that they should not be in college in the first place. And that's a big problem, kids are going to college when they're not college material. It's not easy to pay for college. If your parents aren't willing to help and you're middle class, then you need to take out government student loans as well as private student loans (parents need to cosign) just to afford to attend a university. Gone are the days of being able to work to pay for school, it's simply unrealistic now.

However, a lot of parents are also willing to cosign on private loans for their kids regardless if they should even be attending college or not. These are the kids you see on campus that drop right when the class looks tough. This helps nobody but the universities to make money.

The problem with the workforce is a lot more complicated than a single issues. It's a combination of a bunch of issues.

@plageus900: I could see being dumb as a serious draw back

I disagree, there are some degrees that make you look like an idiot.

To name a few: woman's studies major, gblt major, communications, theater arts.

When employers see that, they'll get some weird impressions of you.

It's definitely more than just the college part. But, it's that attitude which is worrisome. I see it most common with the younger folks. I call it instant gratification for lack of a better term. Many want the results without the hard work. It's a bad attitude which can spread to other parts of society. These kids grow up after all. Their attitudes eventually carry on to work and their lifestyle. They can't cope with failure or effort and then blame it on everything around them.

Income and wealth inequality is reaching crisis levels in the U.S. If I were king of the United States I would implement the following policies to mitigate the damage...

- 90% tax on income in excess of $10 million.- Hoarded wealth in excess of $50 million would be confiscated by the government.
- For profit health care would be outlawed, 100% government funded healthcare across the board.
- For profit prisons would be outlawed, recreational drugs would be legalized across the board.
- Higher education would be subsidised entirely by the government for those who could not pay their own way. Student loans would be outlawed.
- Minimum wage of $25 an hour.
- 300% tariffs on all imported goods and services.
- Aggressive anti-monopoly policies, particularly against mass media monopolies.
- Banning private funds in elections, moving towards tax payer funded campaigns, cracking down on lobbying of government officials.
- Dissolution of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Replaced with one law making body made up of population proportionate representation (sparesely populated states would have less reps, etc).
- One term limits for all elected officials.

...and so on and so forth, you get the drift. If all else fails we'll break out the guillotines.

that honor goes to your current wife? :P

i kid! i kid!

Well yes, it's fairly straightforward. Thanks for the data.

so the 51% made 30,000$ or less.

with 158 M workers, (cf)

that's roughly 80 million people at or below 30,000$ per annum, for a maximum aggregate of 2.4 trillion $.*

the richest 400 people made in excess of 85M$ per person (cf). Taxed at 90% each individual would still make about 2800x the median person. So there is a loss of $30.6B per year of potential revenue - just from these 400. If an in-state cost of college attendance is $20,000 per year, then that is enough money to put 1.5 million people through college, far short of the ~20 million currently enrolled (NCES.ed.gov), yet let us not forget that the lotteries make the states $68B per year and only pay out ~$10B to education (see Last Week Tonight), and spending was down or flat in 21/24 states providing lottery funding for education - as they just take it away from other sources.

that's a minimum aggregate of 34B$ before tax, or .01% of what the 80 million make in aggregate. Keeping in mind the 400 are the ~2.5e-6 of the workforce, and not considering the amount of wealth... the average person's worth is about -3000$ last I checked. This makes the 'death tax' ludicrous - it only applies to those who inherit at least $5M for either parent and results in a loss of a trillion dollars over the next decade (see Sanders' filibuster, 2010).

*or $1.2T max(i), assuming all bottom 38% made exactly 20,000; and $600B max(ii), assuming the next 13% made exactly 30,000; for a combined $1.8T max(net) aggregate (max i + max ii). Why should two millionths of people make 5% of the total amount made by those in the max(ii) bracket (13%)?

obviously i am rounding up on the 51% income and rounding down on the 0.0000025%.

the total aggregate is $7.6T (cf), which means there is quite a bit being caught between the 2.5e-6 % and the 51%.

I know I'm late in saying this, but holy balls sack.

Almost FORTY PERCENT of Americans workers make LESS than 20K a year, and income inequality is only getting worse. We're headed towards third world status in the sense that the people will either be rich or poor and there will be no in between.

Hillary Clinton and Obama will solve all this.

Instead we should vote for the party that advocates cutting social security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. to lower taxes on upper incomes. Then it will all trickle down.

[citation needed]

I'm sure many people do have that attitude.

@gamerguru100: But is it something common to young people these days? I find that hard to believe unless I see some direct proof, otherwise it's just a pointless generalization from yet another old person sticking his down at the younger generation.

There's no citation for it because it is an observation on my part, not facts or formal study. It is an opinion nothing more.

I can't say it's common when taking the whole US population in consideration. But, taking into account I've seen similar situations at different colleges/universities at different states and not just the classes I was personally in, I have seen enough to be concerned.

Perhaps it could be coincidence most of those I saw drop courses were younger students. It could also be a coincidence I saw these same students hanging out at the campus food court afterwards. But, I can safely assume they didn't drop their courses because of a hardship.

My eldest kid is a freshman in college and she's not immune to the influences above. I had to set her straight and stress the importance of passing her courses the first time instead of doing what other students are doing.

That's probably the case. There's a reason why the old coot complaining about those rotten kids is so cliche - it's universal to every generation. And I say this as one of those old coots.

this is why u don't vote republican.

Pretty simple, heavily penalize the companies that do that.. You can't have your cake and eat it.. If you wish to have the advantages of a US infrastructure and customer base, you must provide something in return.. This is what we are currently seeing, corporations taking advantage of the system and giving little in return.... These corporations are not just trying to keep their heads above the water, they are exploding in profits by exploiting this system.. So what we are seeing are these companies are doing immense amounts of business and profits within the US while outsourcing.. They then use that profit to lobby the shit out of the government, they are very much have become parasites in this regard.. Their politics are harming the entire system, while they are exploding in profits.. This is the biggest crock of shit in politics currently with that in which the extremely poor are labeled as parasites, when they do not meet the term.. A parasite twists and turns the host unnoticed and pretends to be a boon, while they are in fact dragging down the system.. The poor aren't gaining power, nor are they controlling the system.. IN fact they are losing more power and becoming poorer overall..

The democrats are hardly better in this regard.. These corporations lobby immense amounts of money to both sides overall.. They just aren't as fucking crazy as the Republicans have become, in which they have turned the whole thing into a ideological crusade rather than trying to solve the actual problem.

Actually...you just charge tariffs on imports. That's what free trade deals do away with and why things like NAFTA have killed the US industrial sector.

I completely agree with you and that point falls under my statement..

Republicans keep trying to cut taxes for the wealthy and decrease programs for everybody else.

One side is much worse than the other.

:P

My current partner is a chemist. She happens to be very bright. :)

I use partner because she's not my wife and she's not just a 'girlfriend' .

Unless your company is part of a mega-union that supports the weak and punishes those who go beyond the bare minimum.

Nope. Have the courtesy to say it to my face.

Anyway, there seems to be good reason why this particular generation seems less able to deal with adversity than other generations and it seems the parents are the ones at fault.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200411/nation-wimps

I'm not well-versed in psychology. I'm just a weatherman, after all. But, I can apply observing skills to things other than the sky and satellite images. I've been watching this trend (in my previous posts) for a while now and concerned because I have kids of my own.