The wealthiest 10% hold 76% of the wealth: The rich continue to pull away from the rest of the crowd.
Wealth in the U.S. continues to accumulate into fewer hands. A recent Congressional Budget Office report showed that the top 10% of U.S. families now control 76% of total wealth. That is a massive amount considering total family wealth is at $67 trillion. Wealth inequality continues to expand and is creating deeper divides in our political landscape. Consider the other side of the coin where half of U.S. families don’t even own one stock. Is it a good thing that wealth is concentrating in fewer hands? It depends on who you ask but wealth inequality of this level was last seen in the Roaring 20s right before entering into the Great Depression. People forget how quickly fortunes can turn. Yet many Americans today are already struggling deeply financially. The end result is a nation that is frustrated with the system since it doesn’t feel like it represents their needs.
Is College Worth It? The $1.4 trillion question gets harder to answer as a record number of Americans attend universities.
One of the most perplexing questions on the minds of young Americans today is whether college is worth the associated tuition cost. It is rather humbling to see that $1.4 trillion in student debt is outstanding today. That is more than auto debt and credit card debt. College tuition has outpaced virtually every category that is tracked in our inflation measures. It has out run housing prices. It has left healthcare in the dust. It has crushed wages which are stagnant for nearly a generation. The last item is probably the most important measure to examine. If college is worth it, why have wages gone stagnant all the while tuition prices continue to go up? Is it because of federal loans? Is it because of mega complexes being built? Or is there something else going on?
95 million Americans not in the labor force: The army of non-workers in the United States.
The United States now has 324 million people. Of that we have a large labor force. 70 million cannot work and most of those are children. But what about the rest? The media largely ignores a massive contingent of people. This group is made of those not in the labor force. Today we have a stunning 95 million Americans that are not in the labor force. So the unemployment rate looks healthier than it is because many of these people are yanked out when calculating the unemployment rate. It is still the case that we have 1 working person supporting 2 other Americans overall. This ratio seems to pan out when we break down the numbers. What are we to make of these 95 million Americans that are not in the labor force?
The American Dream has imploded with the Homeownership rate hitting another low: Most Americans too broke to buy a Home.
Owning a home is symbolic with having a piece of the American Dream. The stereotypical picket white fence with a nice lawn is easily conjured up in the minds of many. Yet for many, this is only a dream because it will never become reality. The American Dream has imploded with many other areas of the economy. We have hit another low when it comes to the homeownership rate. Americans are too broke to purchase homes even with record low interest rates. Home prices have increased hand and hand with the stock market but the problem is, most of the gains have gone to big investors and not families purchasing a place to live. The big bet from Wall Street was to convert many foreclosures into rentals and push rents higher. This is all interconnected like an intricate spider web and the public is the fly trying to break free. The only problem is the housing market has transformed into another trophy for big money investors.