37 Facts About How Cruel This Economy Has Been To Millions Of Desperate American Families

The following are 37 facts that show how cruel this economy has been to millions of desperate American families…

1. One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.

2. A different recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.

3. In the United States today, there are close to 10 million households that do not have a single bank account. That number has increased by about a million since 2009.

4. Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.

5. The number of Americans living in poverty has increased by about 6 million over the past four years.

6. Median household income has fallen for four years in a row. Overall, it has declined by more than $4000 over the past four years.

7. 62 percent of middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.

8. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 85 percent of middle class Americans say that it is more difficult to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.

9. In the United States today, 77 percent of all Americans are living to paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time.

10. In the United States today, more than 41 percent of all working age Americans are not working.

11. Since January 2009, the “labor force” in the United States has increased by 827,000, but “those not in the labor force” has increased by 8,208,000. This is how they have gotten the unemployment numbers to “come down”.

12. Sadly, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.

13. Today, about one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the federal poverty level.

14. Right now, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.

15. At this point, less than 25 percent of all jobs in the United States are “good jobs”, and that number continues to shrink.

16. There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

17. According to USA Today, many Americans have actually seen their water bills triple over the past 12 years.

18. Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

19. In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.

20. Health insurance premiums rose faster than the overall rate of inflation in 2011 and that is happening once againin 2012. In fact, it has been happening for a very long time.

21. According to one recent survey, approximately 10 percent of all employers in the United States plan to drop health coverage when key provisions of the new health care law kick in less than two years from now.

22. Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned. By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.

23. Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

24. Total consumer debt in the United States has risen by 1700 percent since 1971.

25. Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.

26. According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time at this point.

27. Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living at home with their parents.

28. The percentage of Americans that find that they are able to retire when they reach retirement age continues to decline. According to one new survey, 70 percent of middle class Americans plan to work during retirement and 30 percent plan to work until they are at least 80 years old.

29. The U.S. economy lost more than 220,000 small businesses during the recent recession.

30. In 2010, the number of jobs created at new businesses in the United States was less than half of what it was back in the year 2000.

31. Back in 2007, 19.2 percent of all American families had a net worth of zero or less than zero. By 2010, that figure had soared to 32.5 percent.

32. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.

33. In the United States today, somewhere around 100 million Americans are considered to be either “poor” or “near poor”.

34. In October 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, 46.7 million Americans are on food stamps.

35. Approximately one-fourth of all children in the United States are enrolled in the food stamp program.

36. Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare.

37. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government. Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.

What makes all of this even more frightening is that many homeless shelters and food banks around the nation are so overloaded at this point that they are already over capacity. Just consider this example…

When Janice Coe, a homeless advocate in Loudoun County, learned through her prayer group that a young woman was sleeping in the New Carrollton Metro station with a toddler and a 2-month-old, she sprang into action.

Coe contacted the young woman and arranged for her to take the train to Virginia, where she put the little family up in a Comfort Suites hotel. Then Coe began calling shelters to see who could take them.

Despite several phone calls, she came up empty. Coe was shocked to learn that many of the local shelters that cater to families were full, including Good Shepherd Alliance, where Coe was once director of social services.

“I don’t know why nobody will take this girl in,” Coe said. “The baby still had a hospital bracelet on her wrist.”

Keep in mind that Loudoun Country is smack dab in the middle of one of the wealthiest areas of Virginia.

So if things are that bad in the wealthy areas, exactly how bad are things getting in many of the poorer areas?

Listen you are completely blind or living in a vacuum if you cannot see the decimation of our species in your front yards.

There is an agenda to create Golems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem

Unfortunatly what is going on in the US is worse in other countries like Greece and Spain.

Meet Patti Di Pino, 56. She's single, she's unemployed and she lives in an RV. She's one of the many women voters being courted by President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney in the waning days of the presidential election campaign. If she's being courted, she's wondering: Where are the flowers and chocolates?
"I listened to the speeches by the candidates for president and I hear them talking about college kids, finding jobs for them and helping them with their student loans and such," Di Pino told NBC News in a recent interview. "I hear them talking about helping vets get jobs. Not once have I heard about helping baby boomers getting jobs." A generation of women who flooded the paid labor force in the 1970s has spent the past four decades overcoming a host of obstacles to win its fair share of the American economic pie. Down the Ladder:An occasional series on Americans struggling to hold onto a middle-class life. Connect with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or send us email. But for many women now approaching what was to have been the end of their careers, the Great Recession has turned out to be the biggest obstacle of their lives. Di Pino has been looking for steady work for three years since her divorce from her husband of 30 years. In 2009, her employer of 15 years, a construction company, closed its doors and laid her off. Despite a resume that includes three decades in office administration, potential employers continue to pass her over because she has been out of the work force for so long, she says. Relying on a small savings account, she lives in an RV in Aurora, Colo., trolling the Internet for job leads and working odd jobs to pay the bills. Di Pino is one of millions of boomer women whose finances and economic well-being have been shredded by the Great Recession. Since 2007, some 3.5 million women over the age of 18 have fallen below the poverty level, bringing the total to nearly 18 million and raising the poverty rate for women from 12.5 percent to 14.6 percent. Many left the work force in better economic times to raise families, expecting to return later in life to resume careers that have been upended by the recession. Now after long stretches of unemployment they face a bleak future with little retirement savings and meager Social Security benefits diminished by fewer years of payroll tax credits into the system. Women are also more likely to outlive their husbands. Metzger, who eventually remarried, retired in 2009 from a paid nursing job to care for her ailing husband, who died in 2010. Today she’s rebuilding her life, shoring up her retirement investments and finding part-time work in nursing.

Some 50 years after President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963 into law, the researchers found that a woman aged 20 to 24 can expect to bring home 94 cents for every dollar earned by a man her age. By 55, the pay gap for women widens to 75 cents for every dollar earned by men. For single women, the median income, after rising slowly since 1970, barely hit $29,000 in 2009.

Read full article: http://economywatch.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/25/14650419-boomer-women-courted-by-candidates-struggle-in-recessions-wake?lite

About 49 percent of Americans say they are unable to contribute to a retirement plan, according to a survey conducted earlier this year by LIMRA, a financial services industry trade association. But saving for retirement is not something to be ignored. You have to start somewhere. Here are four tips for those of you struggling to put money away for your golden years.

1. Save before you spend
If you're not doing it now, you have to find a way to save and the best thing you can do to help yourself is automate. If the money lands in your checking account and you see it on your ATM receipt, it's too easy to find some "need" to spend it on. Arrange for it to be swiped out of your checking account before that happen and put into an IRA or other savings account.

2. Prioritize your savings
Emergency fund first: If you've heard it once, you've heard it a hundred times. You need at least six months of living expenses - in cash - just in case. When you first start to have money to put away, it's important to fill up this bucket first. That way, you have cash to fall back on when the roof leaks or the computer breaks and you don't have to reach for the credit cards. Put this money in a boring old savings account, where you may not earn much interest but you can get at it if you need it.

Matched contributions: After you satisfy your emergency needs, you can start putting away money for other, longer-term goals. Any money that gets matched comes next on the list for the obvious reasons - the returns are big, instantaneous and guaranteed. You're most likely to get your hands on these through your retirement plan at work, like a 401(k). Another place you may see matching dollars is your state's 529 plan, which is a retirement savings tool. It's rare, but not unheard of, particularly for lower income residents: Colorado's Direct Portfolio College Savings Plan offers a dollar-for-dollar match of up to $500 for lower and middle income residents. Kansas has a similar program, matching contributions above $100 and up to $600 per year.

Tax-advantaged accounts: Once you've maxed out your ability to grab matching dollars, saving in tax-advantaged accounts is your next best move. Some of these offer you a tax break for putting the money in - as with 401(k)s, traditional IRAs, some 529s. All let the money grow tax-deferred while it's in the account. And the Roth IRA, though you are taxed on contributions, lets the money grow tax free forever and doesn't require you to start taking it out at a particular time. All are great advantages when it comes to growing your savings.

Discretionary accounts: So what happens when you've funded your emergency cushion, grabbed all of your matching dollars, maxed out your ability to contribute to retirement and other tax-advantaged accounts, and still have money to save? By all means, save! If we're talking about money for a short-term goal, put it into an account where you won't lose it (that means no stocks) and you can access it when you need it (no long-term CDs). If it's for retirement or something else further down the road, put it in a brokerage accounts and buy some mutual funds that give you the opportunity for growth.

3. Set a realistic savings percentage per month
Start by saving 2 percent per month. It will force you to cutout the small things that you probably won't notice. Avoid a "crash diet" savings approach (setting unrealistic goals just like some people do with food) in order to guarantee long-term savings success. Almost ANYONE can save 2 percent. In the long-term, aim to save 10 percent to 15 percent per month, but you can't start there. Start small and up it as you go along. Something is better than nothing at all.

4. Save when you can
When you find yourself with some extra cash, don't go out on a shopping spree. Resist the urge to spend it all. You never know what the future may bring.

The Retirement Saver’s Credit
What is the Retirement Savers Credit?
The Retirement Savers Credit is a tax incentive to save for retirement. In exchange for you putting money in a qualified retirement account such as a 401(k), IRA, Roth IRA, or 403(b), the government reduces your taxes. You might already know that the government allows an immediate deduction for contributions to many retirement plans—separate from this credit. For example, every dollar you put in your 401(k) plan may reduce your taxable income, immediately saving you taxes. One would think that would be enough of an incentive to save; and it is, for many.

How Does the Credit Work?
Depending on your income level, a certain percentage of the amount you save for retirement is eligible for a credit. The maximum savers credit may be as much as $1,000 ($2,000 for married couples).

Who Qualifies for the Credit?
Only those who save for retirement qualify for the credit. Married savers filing jointly with an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) below $56,500 qualify for the credit, as do Heads of Households with an AGI less than $42,375 and singles with an AGI less than $28,250.

What is the Credit Worth?
Unlike tax deductions which reduce your taxable income, credits reduce your tax–dollar for dollar. Said another way, whereas a $100 tax deduction for a low-income taxpayer might save him $10 or $15 in tax, a $100 credit saves him $100. Note, however, that the Retirement Savers Tax Credit is not refundable. This does not mean you can’t get money (e.g,. a refund) when you file your taxes if you take the credit. Rather, a tax credit’s status as nonrefundable simply means the credit cannot reduce your overall tax liability (including what you pay throughout the year via federal income tax withholding) to below zero.

If you’re skeptical about the credit and your ability to double-dip (i.e., take a deduction and a credit for the same savings), I hear you. Twice benefiting (three times if you count the additional retirement security you create by saving) from the same decision is a true tax rarity. If you qualify, take a few minutes to consider saving for retirement. Although you might feel financially stretched and unable to save, the Retirement Savers Credit just might make saving within your reach.
http://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/2012/04/15/the-retirement-savers-credit/