A Record 95.5 Million Americans Not in the Labor Force:Â One-third of Working Americans Supports the other two-thirds
While the news headlines seem uniform in their championing of the employment market we have another stat that shows an interesting story. There are now a record 95.5 million Americans that are not in the labor force. These are people that for all intents and purposes, are no longer considered part of the employment market. Now in many cases we have older Americans retiring but there is something bigger going on. Since 2009 alone we have seen the number of those not in the labor force increase from 80 million to 95.5 million (this is an increase of 19.37 percent). At the same time, the U.S. population has only increased by 6 percent. In other words, those not in the labor force are increasing at a much faster rate than your general growth in the population. We need to look into this a bit further.
Subprime credit cards – Credit card delinquencies higher than financial crisis peak at 4,700+ small US Banks.
Americans are trying to keep up the pretense of a middle class lifestyle with credit card debt. Out of all the debt available, credit card debt is the least helpful in building a viable financial future. With credit card debt, you are spending future earnings on consumption today. It would be one thing to pay off your credit card balance in full each month but many Americans are not. In fact, there is now over $1 trillion in credit card debt outstanding in the United States. Smaller banks trying to keep up with big banks have found that they need to take greater risk in building out their client base. So what they have done is gone after lower credit customers. And it should not come as a surprise that delinquencies are now rising at a dramatic pace.
Is it possible to pay $0 in taxes on a six-figure income? Yes it is and here is how you do it.
The tax system is setup to reward those that save. But half of the country doesn’t have any money saved so that is a tiny problem. However, if you are willing to put money away you can cut your effective tax rate down to a very low level. I know this seems absurd but it is possible if you are frugal and careful. There is no need for offshore accounts or expensive shell companies. You can do this simply by living below your means. This is hard in a consumption based economy like our own where everything is setup to encourage you to spend. In fact, we now have over $1 trillion in credit card debt which means people are spending money they don’t even have today! So let us get on with the method of how you will pay nearly zero in taxes by utilizing multiple tax shelters.
Credit Card debt over $1 trillion and 1 in 5 Americans have more credit card debt than actual savings.
What is worse than being broke? Having a negative net worth. New data shows that 1 out of 5 Americans has more credit card debt than actual savings. Then again, half of Americans have no actual savings to their name so this isn’t all that surprising. Yet this is a big problem given that many people are going into negative net worth territory through credit cards which are essentially ways to spend money you do not have. And you also have many young Americans going into big debt to support their college education (total student debt now is well over $1.4 trillion). Why are people going into such large amounts of consumer debt?