Below are two charts that tell a story of an unsustainable trend. Here are the facts:
- There are 144 million Americans employed, with 115 million employed full-time and 29 million employed part-time.
- There are 246 million working age Americans, of which 91 million are supposedly not in the work force and 11 million are officially unemployed.
- Approximately 68 million of these workers are in the top two income quintiles.
- The bottom three quintiles receive more government entitlements than they pay in taxes. That means the top two quintiles pay 106% of all the taxes, while the bottom 60% of income producers get money back.
- There are 68 million workers paying taxes to support the 76 million lower income workers, the 11 million unemployed workers, the 91 million working age Americans who have supposedly “chosen” not to work, and the 70 million people either too young or too old to work.
- The workers in the top two quintiles represent 28% of the working age population and are paying 106% of the taxes to fund our welfare/warfare state.
What is shown on these charts is just the entitlement side of the equation. The taxes paid by 68 million people also have to fund our wars of choice in the Middle East, our ever growing surveillance state, prisons for the excess population, and the various other boondoggles that our beloved leaders pay for with our money. Do you understand why we are adding $1 trillion per year to the national debt? Today’s current scenario is a disaster.
We are only at the cusp of the Baby Boomers retiring and collecting what they are “owed”. Entitlement outlays are on automatic pilot and will soar, as 10,000 people per day turn 65 for the next 17 years. The math in this equation does not add up. It is simply unsustainable. The people in the 4th quintile making $88,000 per year can barely call themselves middle class in this hunger games society. Are the politicians in D.C. going to tax them more to cover the fiscal gap? Are the top .1% who write the tax laws going to allow themselves to be shaken down to pay for the bottom 72% who are net recipients of government goodies?
Can 68 million people pay the load for the other 248 million people, along with running a world empire? There is no solution to this dynamic. It’s a train wreck happening in slow motion. We are too far down the track and the bridge is out. Disaster beckons.
Those 68 million worker are just whiners. Too much taxes and too little pay. Forty years ago and different circumstances we made it. Can’t these kids just time travel? Lazy and poor work ethic. If these people would just go work jobs that don’t exist, save money because inflation doesn’t exist, and just drive a 10 year old car at 1.00 a gallon, they won’t be so poor.
Sincerely,
The Boomers.
I saw this study this morning and as you have laid it out, this is so far past sustainability that you can only laugh. I love being in the fourth quintile knowing no matter how hard I work, or how many jobs I take on I will just tread water until I die. It is just so tempting to give up and join the FSA. They live quite well here in Massachusetts. I often wonder what it would be like to have all day to myself, to myself to indulge in the pleasures that make me happy, all day, every, day while other suckers trudge off to their 10 hour workday with a 1 to 1.5 hour commute tacked onto each end. I wonder how much longer I would live without all the stress. How my kids would get a free ride at college because I am “poor.” I could work under the table for a little extra cash. I could go on vacation whenever I want.
My daughter and I volunteer with the church to help with a huge Christmas dinner at the Mass Convention Center that they have for the “poor.” I noticed several distinct things about the “poor” here in this fine state. Many are of the minority status. Not one of them looks the least bit underfed to put it mildly. As my daughter pointed out to me they all had cell phones, including the younger teens, and the vast majority were nicer than hers, which she paid for. They all dressed decent fairly expensive clothing. Each of the young men were wearing what appeared to be expensive sneakers. I could go on with manners and attitudes, but I would be wasting your time. It is troubling that there is such a huge disconnect between the working class and the non-working class. I guess this is the way it will be until it cannot be or as I like to tell my kids it will work until it doesn’t.
On a lighter note I get to pick my son up from finishing his first semester of his junior year studying Chemical Engineering. It is always good to have a nice ride and talk to him about the world. The nice thing about a son studying Chemical Engineering is that he can distill things and blow things up. I just hope I haven’t tainted him with too much negativity.
Bob
Bob.
Great article. They will increase taxes until we’re up to European welfare state levels (70%)
Some days I look forward to the coming collapse, when the government can’t borrow or print any more money and all these liberal progressive feminazi fucks in government are out of a job. Other days, I don’t, fighting the FSA to stay alive. The democrats have created a nuclear FSA time bomb that will go off some day soon.
Union government drone pensions alone will be $250 billion this year. The government will, before it collapses, do a massive “bail in” whereby they confiscate money from IRA’s and bank accounts. It’ll happen as interest rates go to the moon and debt service dwarfs everything else.
If you have any hope that we’re NOT doomed, just have a look at this:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Ok so, does it make more sense to be in that 68 million quintile doing your dooty to support the glorious state and all them welfare recipients, or, on the other hand does it make more sense to get the fuck out of the system now and start living a life where your expenses are low and your need to bring in them fed notes is gone, and you can start learning (the long process of) a different way of walking on this planet? Serious question. Very serious.
In the ‘careers for the young’ thread I believe what was lacking was the important conversation: ‘careers for all of us to fit the current economic climate’, young, old and middle aged. Getting set for impact of that train we all see coming down the track appears to me to be of primary importance, and a worthwhile career in itself. Waiting until after impact might turn out to be too little too late. There are those of us, such as our own noble, bell ringing JQ, who believe that just a few more years of working to support the glorious state (and reach that perceived goal) will turn the trick. I say: question that premise. Makes sense to me to adjust your behavior as if today was the first day of the rest of your life, and start building what you see as your ideal lifestyle.
Timing is everything, but don’t forget location. Ability to produce food probably fits in there somewhere too.
porter
I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about.
I work because I have a family to support and three kids to get through college with no debt. I don’t give a fuck about the state. I put 12 exemptions on my W-4 so I’m not lending my money to the state for 16 months. I write a check every April and give to Caesar what is Caesars.
I keep my expenses as low as possible and use the remainder to try and prepare for an uncertain future. You prepare any fucking way you choose and I’ll do the same. I don’t need any fucking advice from you about what will turn the trick.
So fuck off you prick.
Admin you continue to use the “old” math where numbers are numbers and indisputable.
Under the new “Common Core” math, as long as the maker of the chart has a very good reason for 1 + 1 = 5, then the answer is “correct.”
See, problem solved, the new math now works.
The type of inflation that will likely result from the current policies will no doubt render all these figures as meaningless soon.
Everyone will end up in the top brackets, the debt will be greatly diminished in real terms and we will be a nation of millionaires that can only afford the basics.
Billionaires will become a dime a dozen, that is already happening, and that will be the new benchmark to enter the 1%. Well off with a quarter of a billion, rich with a half a billion, wealthy with three quarters of a billion.
Buy Gold. Buy silver. Don’t dilly dally.
All I know is that Uruguay is sounding better and better each day.
Note to self: Learn Spanish. (Donde es el bano?) That’s all I got.
It’s good to be 73.
the u.s. was prosperous for many year’s because jobs were available. The jobs became unavailable because they disappeared overseas. WT F did politicians who cause this think would happen? So now the government has to support people they royally screwed? Why not just lay down the law to the heathen japanese/chinese, and take those jobs back.
the u.s. was prosperous for many year’s because jobs were available. The jobs became unavailable because they disappeared overseas. WT F did politicians who cause this think would happen? So now the government has to support people they royally screwed? Why not just lay down the law to the heathen japanese/chinese, and take those jobs back. Um, by the way, politician’s are not going to do that for us.
We have to go down to the dock and blockade foreign shipments, just like in the American Revolution. Who would like to go with me and sink some boats?
Don’t say yes unless you mean it and are not mentally disturbed.
Well, fix the math then! Problem solved… I’m ready for office.
Ah Admin,
I sense a bit of angst on your part. You say you don’t know what I’m talking about but then you respond to the points I was making. Fuck, I’d be all pissy too if I was still paying Uncle his blood money. Why do you think it’s Caesars anyway? I find it hard to believe you really think that. Do you really think it’s moral to support the lawless corruption which is Caesar?
I’m talking about changing our mentality, and our lifestyle, in preparation for that train, that will come on us when society breaks down. I know you hear it because you write so well about it. I also know how hard it is to break out of that bias towards normalcy. Been there, done that. Our whole brainwashed life has prepared us to stick in the rut of 9 to 5 work and be a good slave. Anyway, not my aim to give advice, just trying to get people to think outside the box by asking questions. Not my place to judge others or advise them.
By the way, my boys started working beside mom and dad when they were 6&7 helping with the family logging/sawmill business. The little fuckers had Popeye arms by 12. They not only put themselves through college, but came out the other end with more then 10 grand in pocket.
porter
I don’t give a fuck what you sense on my part. Worry about your own fucking life. I’ll worry about mine. If you aren’t paying taxes, then you are either a worthless entitlement fuck or too fucking stupid to make any money.
Don’t describe OUR whole brainwashed life as if you know what OUR lives are like. I happen to like my job. I’m good at it. I like the people I work with. I like my boss.
Just because you hate your fucking life, don’t project it onto other people.
I don’t really care about your little anecdotes about your boys. Fuck off.
JJ3, Uruguay is a nice little country, more European than South American. It is a country of one city, Montevideo, which is a nice, boring place. People in Montevideo take the ferry to Buenos Aires to party. Lots of people, many of whom are North Americans, have discovered this place over the past few years so it is not a cheap place to live anymore. It has a semi-socialist government, but one that isn’t crazy like Argentina’s.
Corporations are earning record profits but executives are the only ones benefitting. Workers aren’t benefitting at all (pay hasn’t increased in 35-40 years, adjusted for inflation). Taxes on the higher quintiles are “unsustainable”? Bullshit! They should be higher. How about hiring more workers during times of record profits? Additionally, if corporate America simply increased everyone’s pay by at least 25% tomorrow all of our problems are solved. The economy booms. Taxable income in all quintiles increases. People pay off debts and spend more money on goods and services. Everyone wins… except for the executives. Find solutions to problems instead of bitching about how government doesn’t work and isn’t sustainable. Government in this country is you and me, so if you don’t like the government then you aren’t satisfied with your own contribution either.