WTF: American Statistics
If This Doesn't Change You...
Let's Talk Facts
I've just finished browsing through the "America at 300 Million" edition of Time magazine (I'll actually read it later tonight), and I've seen some angrifying statistics. Check it out:
50% of Americans report income of less than $30,000. For a family of 4 in the contiguous 48 states, the poverty line is $20,000. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#Current_poverty_rate_and_guidelines for more info on the poverty line.
The average high school teacher makes $1,000 dollars for every 43 hours spent at work. Same for police officers. Farmers need to be at work for 57 hours to make the same amount. Howard Stern makes the same amount for every 24 seconds of work.
Come on! What is that! If that isn't a case for redistribution of income, I don't know what is. What can an average family do with $30,00 a year? Jack, that's what. And don't pretend it's not a vicious cycle, you non-vicious cycle believers. Take your head out of your laissez-faire capitalist asses and see for yourself: low income means living in a bad town with a bad education system, which only creates uneducated workers who have less and less job opportunities every day. America's future is not in making cheap Happy Meal toys, but researching stem cells and alternative energy. Leave the shit jobs to the Chinese; they're forced to do it anyway. Don't try to hang on to those unskilled manufacturing jobs, because the international economy will pry them from your cold, unemployed hands. Either we need to give poorer people more money so they can go to better public schools and eventually go to college, or we need to vastly improve all public education and subsidise higher education. Only 29% of American men and 26% of American women (both 25 and older) have graduated 4-year colleges. There just won't be enough jobs for the other 71-74% of other adults soon. Ireland did it, and they moved from a 3rd world to a 1st world country in a couple decades. Tech companies are flocking to the Emerald Isle, and it's not just because they're looking for leprechaun gold (although that is a large piece of the puzzle). So take heed, people: dumb people suck at earning money.
