The driving force in this political movement is anger and many American families need only look at their bank statements to understand why. Since 2004 median income has fallen by 13% while expenditures have risen by 14% according to latest figures pulled by Pew Research. That strikes at the heart of why the middle class is now a minority. People are struggling to get by and while the Fed is obsessed with interest rates, most families are seeing the impact of crony capitalism devastating their wallets. One perfect example is the banking bailouts. The bailouts simply allowed the too big to fail banks to get even bigger and allowed large investors to purchase many homes as investments. This happened while regular families were struggling. The end result is higher housing costs but no real underlying gain in income. Since housing eats up the biggest part of your budget this has had a major impact. 1 out of 3 American can no longer afford rent, food, or transportation.
Incomes down and expenses up
Americans are struggling to get by. All you need to do is look at income versus expenses:
‘(ZH) According to Pew, households spent more in 2014 than they did in 1996, after adjusting for inflation; this holds whether the figures are based on averages (means) or medians. The typical household saw its expenditures grow by more than 25 percent, from $29,400 in 1996 to $36,800 in 2014. Mean expenditures grew 27 percent since 1996, rising from $43,200 to $54,800.’
This post was published at MyBudget360 on Mar 30 2016.
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