In America today there is a crisis. That crisis is economic inequality. The U.S. workforce has been blamed and dismissed for the growing gap between rich and poor. Much effort has gone into blaming the victim. Americans have been called fat, lazy and stupid along with the never ending drumbeat claim U.S. workers are uneducated and do not have enough technological skills.
The rich get richer and income inequality in America continues with no end in sight. The latest evidence is from the social security administration The gap between rich and the rest of us continues to grow.
The ultra-wealthy uses the tax code as a weapon in their class-war against the poor by paying less than their fair share of taxes, when in a progressive tax system, the most wealthy are supposed to pay a greater percentage of their incomes --- because they are more able to contribute more, which benefits the most.
Women are still low on the economic totem pole. A new Census report shows nothing has changed, women still make 77¢ to a male's dollar when both are working at full-time jobs and if one includes part-time, the ratio is even lower, 71¢. Worse than that, women with families and no husband around make the lowest median income of all, $34,002.
It seems that fast-food wages can't pay the rent these days, so this week fast-food workers took to the streets in protest. Then panic ensued, and Fox News immediately launched a counter-offensive by putting on a high-priced restaurant lobbyist to argue that America's most titanic and profitable corporations, as well as the largest job creators, can't afford to pay their employees a living wage. If this is true, then capitalism, as we once knew it, has come to a shuttering halt.
Welcome to this week in economic outrage. Every day there are thousands of economic horror stories where one just shakes their head in disbelief at the incessant injustice. To combat the information overload, we give you a financial follies reader's digest and how those in power could care less about any of it.
We fill our lives with media. Day in and day out the screens and voices spin a tall fictional tale of Americans with good jobs, houses, cars, educational opportunities and money. Frontline brings home the real America, the one we don't want to face. Gone is the American Dream, replaced with foreclosures, food stamps and work that doesn't pay enough to even make the most modest rent. The new America is a wasteland of broken dreams, broken promises and broken people working themselves into the ground and still not even getting by.
Every day we have outrage after outrage against the U.S. worker and middle class. There is so much economic injustice, it's hard to keep up. Yet some stories are so outrageous you'll swear out loud and scare the dog. Such is the story of McDonald's workers being paid by debit cards instead of checks, forced to do so. An McDonald's ex-employee just sued over it:
Once again our daily barrage of economic injustice news is overwhelming. From lobbyist lies to interest rate swap rigging to killing workers by the hundreds to our best and brightest working jobs flipping burgers, here are some quick economic news shorts that you don't want to miss.
Welcome to the weekly roundup of great articles, facts and figures. These are the weekly finds that made our eyes pop.
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