America society is breaking apart. Millions of people have lost their jobs and fallen into poverty. Please review the stats:
1. 43 million now receive food assistance. No European Union nation humiliates its disadvantaged citizens in the checkout line. Yet the rolls are growing. 6 million were added over the last year.
2. The chasm between the very rich and the poor has never been this big. A distant second in in come inequality would be the Great Depression era.
3. 72 million wage earners made $ 25,000 or less per year. One third of all Americans had zero dollars in a retirement account.
4. From 1950 to 1989 the top one percent earned roughly 7 to 8 percent of national income. Today it is close to 20 percent.
5.While 42 percent of financial wealth is controlled by 1 percent, 3 million families have lost their homes in 2009 and real unemployment is well over 20 percent.
6. The bottom 80% control only 7% of financial wealth. With as many as 600,000 jobs evaporating monthly, how many Wal-Mart shoppers of groceries are staring at the spectacular gains of Wall Street private equity? How many coupon cutters will be impressed by the fact that ‘Banksters” received 10 trillion dollars from Federal Government in 2009?
7. Between 1979 and 2004, the after-tax income for the top 1 percent skyrocketed 176 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
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