So as many of you have seen that the politicians loves to talk about the unemployment numbers and wall street keeps an keen eye on the numbers every time they are being published.
But there is a sad truth behind these unemployment numbers that often tend to move up and down between 4-11%.
And what you are not being told is that in a good economy where the unemployment numbers are anywhere from 4-6% there is still almost 27% of the workforce that is being counted into the numbers that still can not make a living wage from their job.
And then you have a lot of people that are not even being counted into the stats, due to them having stopped looking for work, or being employed a few hours each week or even a few hours each month.
So a homeless person living on the streets will not be counted into these stats, since most of them are not actively looking for work.
So what does a living wage mean?, it means that you can live on your salary(paying your rent or mortgage, paying for your car and utilities and everything that counts into normal living).
So if your one job pays 10 dollars and hour and you work 160 hours a month, that is not even 20.000 dollars a year after some taxes have been adducted.
That means that this is not a living wage in America in 2020.
So then you need to pick up another job for 10 dollars an hour, with another workload of 160h a month.
So now you are working 16h days 5 days a week to make 40.000 dollars a year.
And maybe you even need to pick up a weekend job with another 70-80 hours a month to get up to 55.000 dollars pre tax.
So what people are not understanding to read between the lines of these numbers that many Americas are working themselves into early retirement by burning themselves out by working way to much.
And missing so much time with their families when both parents are trying to keep a roof over the children’s head and put food on the table.
You can work 16 hours days for 15-20 years when you are younger, but it will take a Toll on you when you get older, no doubt about that.
So we have a huge underlying problem with millions of Americans who have to work anywhere from 2-4 jobs to get themselves a living wage.
We are seeing that the labor market has exploded since the 2008 financial crisis, that these minimum wage jobs and jobs with no benefits what so ever have become the new norm in a lot of trades.
So what happen after the financial crisis back in 2008 that actually was lingering for another 6 years after up to around 2014, we saw that companies that had laid of people making 80.000 dollars a year in 2008, was re-hiring at a level of close to half the pay for the same job a few years later.
And basically the workers got stripped of almost all benefits when they got re-hired again back to into their old job, doing the exact same thing for less than half of their old pay.
So this is one way that a big part of the middle class in the US became working class, just inside a few years between 2008-2014.
So why do people accept to work in 2020 for half the pay they had in 2008 and prior to the financial crisis of 2008-2014?.
This one is quit simple actually, they have no choice they are stuck in the rat trap.
They have a mortgage to pay that was often taken out in the good years before 2008 and if they where able to hang on to the property they have done everything in their power to keep their home and life going.
So people are sacrificing and working 2.5 times more to keep getting the same pay they had prior to 2008.
And this is why the American dream have died in many ways.
There are in many places in the US today 25% high to medium paying jobs, and then you have 75% of the jobs paying very little.
So you have a crushed middle class, that has become working class in less than 10 years.
This is why also so many families are leaving California, and going to Texas where if you make 70.000 dollars a year you can live on it.
You can not live on 70.000 dollars in Los Angeles of San-Fran these days.
And now in Covid-19 times there is most likely 55%+ of the workforce that can not make a living wage in America.
So when you hear politicians say we have record low unemployment today, rather ask them how many of the employed people can actually make a living wage from their ONE job!.
The politicians do not like getting that question.
Now some people will say this is the capitalistic world, deal with it, we believe that if you work a full time position in the US regardless of the job you are doing, you should be able to make a basic living on that ONE JOB.
And if you can not, then the system is broken!.
Take care out there.
Mrlifeadvise.
