Katrina vanden Heuvel: Insecure America

[marmar]

from The Nation:



Insecurity in America is on the rise—and was even before the Great Recession.

The Rockefeller Foundation just released a study of economic insecurity in America, which was developed by Yale professor Jacob Hacker and measures harsh changes in circumstance: For example, it reveals how many Americans have been subjected to a staggering decline of 25 percent of "available household income," either from loss of income or sudden, unanticipated out-of-pocket medical costs, and how many were without the savings to buffer the damage. Brutal losses such as these take six to eight years to recover from, the report said.

Economic insecurity affected 12.2 percent of Americans in 1985 and spiked to 17 percent during the 2000 downturn. In 2007, when economists were celebrating "the Great Moderation," insecurity was higher than in 1985, affecting 13.7 percent of Americans. In 2009, after the downturn, Hacker estimates that one in five Americans was hit with a 25 percent decline in available household income. And the report estimates that between 1996 and 2006—before the collapse—fully 60 percent experienced such loss.

What happened? Incomes stagnated for most Americans. Medical costs rose far faster than inflation or incomes. Fewer people received pensions or health care at work. Households took on rising levels of debt to try to make ends meet. Hacker found that a majority of Americans have almost no savings to fall back on at a time of an emergency.

The Great Recession appears to be a turning—for the worse, with trillions in retirement savings and home values obliterated. When Wall Street took us over the cliff, Presidents Bush and Obama threw everything but the kitchen sink at the economy to staunch the losses. Nearly a trillion in fiscal stimulus. Trillions in Federal Reserve support for banks here and abroad. These measures, as Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi detail in a recent paper, stopped the freefall. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blog/151804/insecure-america

[Bandit]

1. Sounds like the bankers are looking for bigger bonuses.

promote Fear Fear Fear and the government will come running with billions for their bonuses..