Income analysis finds main reason for American pessimism is additional $11,400 needed for basics

How-much-more-money-map

Important Takeaways:

  • The typical American household must spend an additional $11,434 annually just to maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed in January of 2021, right before inflation soared to 40-year highs, according to a recent analysis of government data.
  • Such figures underscore the financial squeeze many families continue to face even as the rate of U.S. inflation recedes and the economy by many measures remains strong, with the jobless rate at a two-decade low. The analysis, from Republican members of the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee, taps government data such as the Consumer Price Index and Consumer Expenditure Survey to examine the impact of inflation state by state.
  • Even so, many Americans say they aren’t feeling those gains, and this fall more people reported struggling financially than they did prior to the pandemic, according to CBS News polling. Inflation is the main reason Americans express pessimism about economy despite its bright points, which also include stronger wage gains in recent years.
  • The Biden administration called the analysis “flawed.”
  • Around the U.S., the state with the highest additional expenditures to afford the same standard of living compared with 2021 is Colorado, where a household must spend an extra $15,000 per year, the JEC analysis found. Residents in Arkansas, meanwhile, have to spend the least to maintain their standard of living, at about $8,500 on an annual basis.

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Many politicians still don’t understand why we’re frustrated: Money is thrown to everyone outside America while retirement here is out of the picture for majority

No-More-Retirement

Important Takeaways:

  • Just over half of Americans over the age of 65 are earning under $30,000 a year, and it shows how stark the retirement crisis is
  • There’s a retirement crisis looming for many Americans — and some are already living on scant incomes. Retirement becoming a luxury for Americans hoping to get a reprieve in their later years is something a handful of lawmakers are hoping to change.
  • The report cited the National Retirement Risk Index which found that around half of households “will not be able to maintain their pre-retirement living standard,” and 56% of low-income households — and 45% of those who are middle-income — were “at risk” of not maintaining those pre-retirement standards at age 65.
  • Even more glaringly, 73% of those in the bottom group of wealth holders were similarly at risk, compared to 28% of those in the highest wealth group.
  • And, for some, the retirement crisis is already here. Just over half of Americans over the age of 65 are living on incomes of $30,000 or less a year, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The largest share — just under 23% — have incomes between $10,000 and $19,999.

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Reality sets in when you realize that foreign nations blame you for what our government is doing

Lindsey-Graham

Important Takeaways:

  • Subtle Change in Ukraine Blame Means Deadly Trouble for Americans
  • A very subtle change in the words coming out of the Russian Foreign Ministry signals the FINAL step before the annihilation of the United States. We have now reached the final step . . .
  • The wording used by the Russian Foreign Ministry was very subtle, but its implications are anything but. See if you can pick-up the subtle change in this excerpt from RT:
    • The US and its citizens are complicit in the deaths of the Ukrainian POWs who were killed last week when the Russian Il-76 military aircraft transporting them was shot down by Kiev’s troops, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, has said.
    • On Thursday, Russia’s Investigative Committee released a report stating that the cargo plane was destroyed using two US-made MIM-104A missiles fired by a Patriot air-defense system. The Il-76 came down in Russia’s Belgorod Region last Wednesday. All of those on board – 65 Ukrainian POWs, three Russian troops, and six crew members – were killed.
    • Russian investigators stated that Ukrainian troops fired the missiles from a staging area in Kharkov Region, not far from the village of Liptsy, some 10km from the Russian border. They based their conclusion on 116 missile fragments found at the crash site bearing inscriptions in English.
    • Responding to the report, Zakharova said in a Telegram post that US citizens “need to know where their money is going,” arguing that President Joe Biden and his administration have made Americans “complicit in a bloody tragedy.”
  • Did you catch it? Did you pick up the subtle change in the language they used?   It’s right there in front of you!
  • Here, let me focus it for you:
  • “The US and its citizens are complicit in the deaths of the Ukrainian POWs . . .”
  • Then again, in a later paragraph:
  • ” . . .arguing that President Joe Biden and his administration have made Americans “complicit in a bloody tragedy.” “”
  • Remember, this nation celebrates Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address wherein he posited that we have “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
  • Ergo, when the US Government does something, it does it in OUR name. You and me.
  • The Russians have now made clear who it is they hold responsible for what the US Government is doing: YOU and ME.
  • Why should Russia sit back and allow us to supply arms to Ukraine, which are now clearly being used to kill Russians?
  • Why shouldn’t Russia tell the United States (again) to stop supplying weapons that are killing Russians and then add, or Russia will start hitting the United States?
  • Why shouldn’t Russia make it direct? Blunt?
  • Well . . . . turns out, they just began making it blunt. At the top of this Op-Ed, they have now begun blaming “American citizens.”   You and me.
  • Where is this leading?
  • What is the difference between “Killing” and “murder?”
  • Murder is the unlawful killing of an innocent. But “Killing” is allowable if it is “justified.”
  • For instance, if a guy is aiming a gun at you, and you do something which kills him, that is “self defense” and not murder, even though the guy is now dead.
  • The Russian Foreign Ministry has now begun laying the historical groundwork to justify exactly that.
  • By changing their statements to lay blame upon “the American people” they are building a record to justify killing . . .
  • Wise-up folks.

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Homelessness in America is breaking records new report finds

Homelessness-chart

Important Takeaways:

  • Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds
  • According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015. That marks the largest single-year increase in the country’s unhoused population on record, Harvard researchers said.
  • Homelessness, long a problem in states such as California and Washington, has also increased in historically more affordable parts of the U.S. Arizona, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas have seen the largest growths in their unsheltered populations due to rising local housing costs.
  • That alarming jump in people struggling to keep a roof over their head came amid blistering inflation in 2021 and 2022 and as surging rental prices across the U.S. outpaced worker wage gains. Although a range of factors can cause homelessness, high rents and the expiration of pandemic relief last year contributed to the spike in housing insecurity, the researchers found.
  • The median rent in the U.S. was $1,964 in December 2023, up 23% from before the pandemic

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46% of credit card holders are carrying debt month to month with the average interest rate at 20%

Credit-Card-Debt

Important Takeaways:

  • 56 million Americans have been in credit card debt for at least a year. ‘We are seeing pockets of trouble,’ expert says
  • Americans are increasingly leaning on their credit cards.
  • Altogether, card balances now total $1.08 trillion, according to the latest quarterly report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a new record.
  • “Over the past two years, Americans’ credit card balances have skyrocketed 40%,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.
  • Nearly half, or 49%, of credit card holders carry debt from month to month on at least one card, up from 46% last year, the report found, and 56 million cardholders have been in debt for at least a year.
  • The average credit card rate is now more than 20%, on average — an all-time high
  • At 20.74%, if you made minimum payments toward the average credit card balance — which is $6,088, according to Transunion — it would take you more than 17 years to pay off the debt and cost you more than $9,072 in interest, Bankrate calculated.

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JP Morgan says 2024 will be difficult for 99% of Americans: Economic storms keep brewing

Shoppers-in-Manhattan

Important Takeaways:

  • 99% of Americans will be financially worse-off than they were pre-pandemic by mid-2024, JPMorgan says
  • The majority of Americans have burned through their excess savings piled up during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the coming months, JPMorgan says it is likely that almost everyone will be worse off financially than they were in 2019.
  • In a Thursday note, the bank’s top stock strategist Marko Kolanovic said 80% of consumers, a group that accounts for nearly two-thirds of consumption, has already depleted any savings cushion they may have built during lockdowns.
  • “It is likely that only the top 1% of consumers by income will be better off than before the pandemic,” Kolanovic wrote, pointing to the growing signs of credit card and auto loan delinquencies, as well as Chapter 11 filings.
  • JPMorgan estimated previously that excess savings had peaked in August 2021 at $2.1 trillion, boosted by government stimulus checks. That’s since been whittled down to below $148 billion, per the firm’s calculations as of October.
  • As Bank of America wrote in a recent note, the plight of elder millennials is particularly difficult.
  • Older millennials — a demographic of Americans born in the 1980s that holds significant influence on the US economy — have had to navigate the 2008 financial crisis in addition to the pandemic during critical working years of their lives.
  • The two economic storms, as well as mounting childcare costs and sticky inflation, have made it difficult for the sizable cohort to own a house, save for retirement, and comfortably spend money within their means.

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The American Dream has a price tag: Is ‘Keeping up with the Jones’ really worth it?

Inflation-Hurts

Important Takeaways:

  • The “American Dream” costs about $3.4 million to achieve over the course of a lifetime, from getting married to saving for retirement, according to a recent analysis from financial site Investopedia.
  • Meanwhile, median lifetime earnings for the typical U.S. worker stand at $1.7 million, earlier research from the Georgetown University has found.
  • Such figures underline the financial pressures that many families face trying to afford a middle-class life as expenses like child care, college tuition and buying a home continue to climb. The Investopedia analysis tallies the average cost of achieving other aspects traditionally associated with the American Dream, such as owning a house and raising two children to age 18.
  • Another analysis, from USA Today, found that funding the American Dream costs about $130,000 a year for a family of four. Median household income stands at about $74,450, according to the Census Bureau.
  • Here’s how much Investopedia estimates a family must spend to afford some of the hallmarks often associated with the American Dream. Some costs might be lower or higher, depending on a family’s goals.
    • Hospital birth, average out-of-pocket costs for people with health care: $5,708
    • Wedding and engagement ring: $35,800
    • Raising two children to 18 years old: $576,896
    • 10 car purchases over a lifetime: $271,330
    • One year of college for two kids: $42,080
    • Average cost to buy a home, including lifetime mortgage payments: $796,998
    • Pets: $67,935
    • Health insurance from ages 26-65: $934,752
    • Retirement: $715,958
    • Funeral costs: $7,848

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Senior official for Hamas says “Now it our nation’s turn to pressure Americans” “We need acts of violence”

Hamas-Spokesman

Important Takeaways:

  • Hamas threatens violence against Americans ‘everywhere’ in chilling new video
  • Speaking on Memri, Senior Official for Hamas Sami Abu Zuhri called for acts of violence against the USA and also the UK.
  • Zuhri’s comments come as tensions over the Israel-Hamas war intensify with pressure growing on Israel to stop the fighting.
  • Speaking on Memri, Zuhri said: “When Blinken is justifying the killing of women and children, the sons of our nation should say to him: ‘You are the enemy, just like Netanyahu, and you must pay the price, just like Netanyahu.
  • “Now it is our nation’s turn to pressure the Americans to stop this war. We need violent acts against American and British interests everywhere as well as the interests of all the countries that support the occupation.
  • “They must pay a price for the blood of our women and children who are being killed in cold blood on the streets of Gaza. They must pay a price so that they know that Gaza is not alone and that when they gave the order to kill, they should have been prepared to pay the necessary price.”
  • Memri’s statement and Zuhri’s words come just days after Hamas issued a chilling threat saying that no more hostages would be released unless their demands were met.
  • Israel has claimed that Hamas still has 117 hostages and the remains of around 20 people in its possession.

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Recent studies show young Americans losing faith in Government Institutions

College-Student

Important Takeaways:

  • Young Americans are losing faith in democracy — educators must act now
  • In December 2021, a study of young people conducted by Harvard’s Institute of Politics showed that 52 percent “believe that the country’s democracy is either ‘in trouble’ or ‘a failed democracy.’” Just 7 percent said that democracy in the United States is “healthy.” Another poll, also conducted two years ago, found that “Not only do younger Americans express greater skepticism about American democracy, their doubts extend to feelings about being American and whether the US serves as a moral example in the world.”
  • Younger Americans, it turns out, “express far less pride in their nationality than older Americans…. (S)eniors are more than twice as likely as young adults to say they are extremely proud to be American (23 percent vs. 55 percent).”
  • A more recent study of the civic outlook of younger voters notes that “Young adults are dissatisfied with our political system (57%), and most have no or little trust in government institutions (52%).” Fewer than half (48%) plan to vote in the next general election, compared to about two-thirds of the general public.”
  • But the erosion of support for democracy among young people is not just an American problem. As Freedom House, a democracy advocacy group, puts it, “Democratic backsliding has become a global trend. Amid this environment comes a rash of statistics suggesting that the world’s young people are increasingly disengaged from political life: they’re voting less, rejecting party membership, and telling researchers that their country’s leaders aren’t working in their interests.”
  • A September 2023 survey of people in 30 countries found that 86 percent of its respondents “prefer to live in a democratic state and only 20% believe authoritarian regimes are more capable of delivering ‘what citizens want.’
  • Back in this country, 55 percent of young people currently believe that “the country is heading in the wrong direction, with 16 percent saying it’s on the right track and the rest (28%) saying they’re not sure.”

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US Suicide rate hits highest point in 80 years

Suicide-Rate-Graph

Important Takeaways:

  • The suicide rate among Americans, which has risen steadily over the past 18 years, has reached its highest point since 1941, preliminary data for 2022 shows.
  • The suicide rate per 100,000 people in 2022 was 14.3, according to a report from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention released early Wednesday. The rate was 15 in 1941.
  • An estimated 49,449 people died by suicide in 2022, the CDC said. That’s an increase of 2.6% over the 48,183 suicide deaths in 2021.
  • The rate for males was 23.1 and 5.9 for females in 2022.

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