TheAmericanDream

The American Dream is being systematically destroyed right in front of our eyes and most Americans don’t even realize what is happening.  In the old days, if you were a hard worker and you played by the rules you could always find a good job.  That good job would enable you to buy a house, buy at least one car and support a family.  It would also enable you to take a couple of vacations each year and buy some nice things for your family.  After working for 30 or 40 years you would look forward to a comfortable retirement.  But these days fewer and fewer Americans are able to enjoy the American Dream.  Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a breathtaking pace.  Our economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for all of us anymore, and an increasing percentage of the jobs that are being produced pay 10 dollars an hour or less.  The cost of living continues to rise steadily every single year while wages do not.  Close to half of all American workers are living month to month, and many American families have gone deep into debt as they struggle to pay the bills.  Millions more Americans are falling into poverty each year and dependence on the government is at an all-time high.  Something is fundamentally wrong with our economy.  It is not working the way that it used to, and the middle class is being absolutely shredded.  Most American families are finding it harder and harder to make it through each passing year, and unless a miracle happens things are going to continue to get even harder.

The following are 22 statistics that prove that the American Dream is being systematically destroyed….

#1 As the economy has declined, the number of Americans living month to month has soared.  At this point, millions upon millions of Americans are living without any financial cushion whatsoever.  If you can believe it, one recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.  Another survey found that 42 percent of all American workers are currently living paycheck to paycheck.

#2 Thanks to horribly oppressive regulations, red tape and taxes, it is incredibly difficult to run a successful small business in America today.  According to the Christian Science Monitor, more than half of all small business owners in America cannot even afford to put food on the table from their small business earnings….

A shocking figure from the Wave survey relates to how well the business owners were able to meet their basic needs through their business. An incredible 52% of American small business owners can’t put food on the table through the earnings from their business over the past twelve months.

Another recent survey found that 23 percent of all small business owners have gone an entire year without pay.

#3 In recent years U.S. families have experienced an astounding decline in wealth.  According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of families in the United States declined “from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010“.

#4 The U.S. economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for all of us at this point.  For example, it was reported that 20,000 people applied for just 877 jobs at a Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama earlier this year.  Sadly, the official U.S. unemployment rate has been above 8 percent for 40 months in a row, and this is supposed to be “the recovery”.

#5 Eight million Americans have “left the labor force” since the recession supposedly ended.  If those Americans were added back into the unemployment figures, the unemployment rate would be somewhere up around 12 percent.

#6 Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high.  Meanwhile, wages as a percentage of GDP are near an all-time low.

#7 The United States was once ranked #1 in the world in GDP per capita.  Today we have slipped to #12.

#8 Just paying for the basics is becoming increasingly difficult for many Americans.  For example, 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.

#9 The average American household spent approximately $4,155 on gasoline during 2011, and electricity bills in the U.S. have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

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