AMDG

DOWNWARD DRIFT

The following stats are taken from Arianna Huffington's recent article in the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/is-iundercover-bossithe_b_490989.html

• The chasm between America's haves and have-nots has reached Grand Canyon-esque proportions. Thirty years ago top executives at S&P 500 companies made an average of 30 times what their workers did -- now they make 300 times what their workers make
• Since 2000, 3.2 million more American households are trying to make do on under $25,000 a year.
• In 2005, households in the bottom 20 percent had an average income of $10,655, while the top 20 percent made $159,583 -- a disparity of 1,500 percent, the highest gap ever recorded
• .In 2007, the top ten percent pocketed almost half of all the money earned in America -- the highest percentage recorded since 1917 (including, as Henry Blodget notes, 1928, the peak of the stock market bubble in the "roaring 1920s").
• Almost 100 million Americans are in families that make less in real income than their parents did at their same age.
• The percentage of Americans born to parents in the bottom fifth of income who will climb to the top fifth as adults is now only seven percent.
• If you were born to wealthy parents but didn't go to college, you're more likely to be wealthy than if you did go to college but had poor parents.

How long before many of us who are now in the middle class will begin to drift downward to the bottom fifth. It only takes the loss of a job, a loss of health care and a major illness.