Memo to all of those people out there asking what the point of #OWS is: Have a look at these payroll statistics to get a clue if you don't have one yet. Via Reuters: The median paycheck — half made more, half less — fell again in 2010, down
October 21, 2011

Memo to all of those people out there asking what the point of #OWS is: Have a look at these payroll statistics to get a clue if you don't have one yet. Via Reuters:

The median paycheck — half made more, half less — fell again in 2010, down 1.2 percent to $26,364. That works out to $507 a week, the lowest level, after adjusting for inflation, since 1999.

The number of Americans with any work fell again last year, down by more than a half million from 2009 to less than 150.4 million.

jobs-data.jpg

There was, however, one group that did quite well. Quite well, indeed.

The number of workers making $1 million or more rose to almost 94,000 from 78,000 in 2009. However, that was still below some earlier years, including 2007, when more than 110,000 workers made more than $1 million each.

At the very top, the number of workers making more than $50 million rose in 2010 to 81, up from 72 the year before. But average pay in this group declined $4.5 million to $79.6 million.

Aw. Poor oligarchs took a little hit in pay but increased their ranks. Aren't they the lucky ones?

Meanwhile, we have Republicans in the Senate that are just worst than useless. At this point, I consider their inactions to be inactions of intentional evil.

Oh, here's a bonus. It's a long read, but worth it, if only to see how a teacher and a public employee in Ohio are coping. It's a story lots of us can tell -- just holding on by the edge of our fingernails, if that.

MotherJones: Ohio's War on the Middle Class

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon