In Third World America, You Can't Buy a Ream of Paper on Minimum Wage

[girl gone mad]

In Third World America, You Can't Buy a Ream of Paper on Minimum Wage
by Janet Tavakoli
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-tavakoli/in-third-world-america-yo_b_798598.html

In 2010, every one of my work-related conversations turned to personal wealth management. The money-class wants to preserve and increase their considerable wealth, and they are terrified of losing it. Elsewhere in America, those that don't have money are terrified of the rising cost of necessities like food and energy not captured in the (core) consumer price index calculation.

As of July 24, 2009, minimum wage in the United States was $7.25/hour (before taxes). At the beginning of 2010, minimum wage barely bought you a pre-tax $6.79 ream (500 sheets) of paper at Office Depot. By the end of 2010, that cost had skyrocketed to $9.49 per ream, nearly a 40% increase. But printer paper isn't a necessity for those who need to feed and clothe their families. Official unemployment is at 9.8%, and many "new" jobs are part-time jobs that replaced former full-time jobs. Counting underemployment, the misery soars above 20%.

Arianna Huffington's latest book, Third World America, explains how those with the least power and money have been getting squeezed for decades:

(The median middle class American) in September 1979 was earning (in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars) $25,896 a year. In September 1995, that same man or woman was earning $24,700 a year -- a 5 percent cut in salary over the intervening decade and a half. (P. 54)

Meanwhile, the financial system has strangled U.S. growth by parasitically growing from 3% of GDP in 1965 to 7.5% of GDP currently. Money was diverted from capital investment, the most important stimulus generator for our economy, to save corrupt financial institutions. Financial services now account for 35-40% of all corporate profits in the U.S. That number should be less than 5% in an honest economy. CEOs of bailed-out banks earn more than they did before the bailout.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-tavakoli/in-third-world-america-yo_b_798598.html">more...

[Catherina]

1. The poor don't need to read or write. What do they need paper for? Rec'd n/t

[Hydra]

2. We don't need to eat, either- we're taking up valuable air

Thus, the culling continues.

[Catherina]

3. Nope. We don't need to sleep. We don't need to eat.

We just need to stand on our fucking feet.

[Hydra]

4. Too bad that's the hard part, huh?

:evilgrin:

[old mark]

6. Hydra, soon someone will figure out how to charge us for that air, and

then we won't be able to afford any...


mark

[Kat45]

8. These days, you can't even get a low level job without a resume.

Resume = need for paper.

[grasswire]

9. I know a 16-year-old who applied for a pt prep job at a bagel place

They required a resume from her.

The world is getting more and more nuts.

[Go2Peace]

5. "Hidden inflation" Food will go up this year again.

Everyone that shops knows that prices on the fundamentals of life have been going up.

[truedelphi]

7. And if certain ramifications mentioned by critics of the new "Food Safety"

Act turn out to be spot on, we might be facing huge prices in food, with more imports than ever.

If you outlaw food being produced in this country,or make its production here prohibited by exorbitant expenses, you'll have to pay for imports, from other nations that won't have "Food Safety" Acts to worry about.