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Old 08-07-2013, 10:22 PM
jlwdm jlwdm is online now
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Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: DFW TX
Posts: 4,352
Quote:
Originally Posted by #campyuserftw View Post
We are in the Great Recession...and our front wheels are not reaching the plateau. Poverty is growing, and what we're seeing in upstate NY, at one bike shop, is across the country, a financial strife in all fields....


"The official unemployment rate is 7.6%, but the real number is actually about twice that. A statistic known as the U-6 figure includes the unemployed, plus those “marginally attached” to the labor force (they want a job but have largely given up looking), plus those working part-time but who want a full-time job. The U-6 number for June 2013 was a resounding 14.3%, up half a percentage point from May. Fewer working-age Americans are working than at any time in the past 30 years. The employment-to-population ratio is 58.7% according to the Department of Labor, a drop from 63% five years ago, before the recession hit.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more Americans are working part-time involuntarily. These part-timers now number more than 8.2 million, which is an increase of 322,000 workers from May and almost double the number this time five years ago. Also, a July National Employment Law Project (NELP) study concluded that real median hourly wages declined by 2.8% averaged across all occupations from 2009 to 2012."

...
Unfortunately there are lots of people who don't want to work or don't want to work hard. Too many people want the government to take care of them.

Also, education and real learning are just not important to too many people in this country. It is easy to make it through the US education system without learning a lot. If people would be inquisitive throughout their lives they could learn so much.

Jeff