How much will you need for medical expenses in retirement? What does it cost to keep 2.5 million Americans behind bars? Here are a few facts and figures that might surprise you.
1. Recovery for the rich, recession for the rest.
Economic recovery is in rather limited supply, it seems. Research by economist Emmanuel Saez shows that the top 1 percent has enjoyed income growth of over 11 percent since the official end of the recession. The other 99 percent hasn’t fared so well, seeing a 0.4 percent decline in income.
The top 10 percent of earners hauled in 46.5 percent of all income in 2011, the highest proportion since 1917 – and that doesn’t even include money earned from investments. The wealthy have benefitted from favorable tax status and the rise in stock prices, while the rest have been hit with a continuing unemployment crisis that has kept wages down. Saez believes this trend will continue in 2013.
2. Half of us are poor or barely scraping by.
The latest Census Bureau data shows that one in two Americans currently falls into either the “low income” category or is living in poverty. Low-income is defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level. Adjusted for inflation, the earnings for the bottom 20 percent of families have dropped from $16,788 in 1979 to just under $15,000. Earnings for the next 20 percent have been stuck at $37,000.
States in the South and West had the highest proportion of low-income families, including Arizona, New Mexico and South Carolina, where politicians are eagerly shredding the social safety net.
3. Unhappy meal.
46.7 million Americans must now use food stamps in order to get a meal, and many aren’t old enough to earn money for themselves. Almost half of all U.S. children will be on food stamps during some part of their childhood. For black children, that number is 90 percent. Eight percent of those receiving food stamps are seniors.
The average monthly SNAP benefit (food stamps) per person is $133.85. That’s less than $1.50 per person, per meal. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2011, a gallon of milk cost $3.50 on average in the U.S. while a pound of stew beef cost $4.30. Food prices are expected to increase as much as 3 percent in 2013.
4. Old age and poverty.
According to economist Kenneth Thomas, the U.S. has the dubious honor of having the highest elder poverty rate of any industrialized nation larger than Ireland. If poverty is measured as 50 percent of the median income, a whopping 25 percent of elderly Americans are considered poor.
Research shows that an increasing number of Americans are entering poverty in old age. The percentage of Americans ages 75 to 84 new to poverty doubled in 2009 from the 2005 figure. Most elderly Americans living in poverty have serious medical problems.
5. Incarceration nation.
Two and a half million Americans are currently under lock and key. That’s more than the population of Philadelphia, Houston, Phoenix or Dallas. More than the entire state of New Mexico. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population, but we have 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.
The cost to taxpayers for keeping all these people behind bars is $63.4 billion a year. In some states, the cost of keeping a single prisoner is as much as $60,000 per year – about as much as it would take to pay for workers axed by austerity policies – like teachers, for instance.
6. The cost of gender inequality.
The National Partnership for Women and Families has found that women in the U.S. earn $10,784 less than their male counterparts each year. According to their calculations, if women earned equal pay for equal work, they could purchase 1.7 years worth of groceries in Washington state, an additional 2,746 gallons of gas in Colorado, and 3.7 extra years of health insurance premiums in Connecticut.
7. College degrees still pay off, big-time.
Today, 31 percent of Americans hold a bachelor’s degree, and the financial gap between haves and have-nots is huge. A 2012 report by the Association of State Higher Education Executive Officers showed that people who get a bachelor’s degree have a median income of $50,360, while those with only a high school diploma earn a mere $29,423 on average. An associate’s degree bumps you up to a median income of $38,607. If you get a graduate degree, your median income is $68,064. That’s 35.2 percent more than those with a bachelor’s degree.
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, if you are born into the poorest fifth of U.S. families and get a college degree, you have an 80 percent chance of improving your economic status over the course of a lifetime. The odds drop to 55 percent without a college diploma.
8. A retired couple needs a quarter million for retirement – just for healthcare.
In 2011, 53 percent of Americans feared they wouldn’t have enough money to live comfortably in retirement, up from only 41 percent in 2004.
They have good reason. Research from 2010 shows that soaring healthcare costs indicate that a couple must sock away $250,000 for medical expenses, taking into consideration Medicare premiums, copayments and deductibles, out-of-pocket prescription costs, and a life expectancy of 85 for women and 82 for men.
9. The looting of America.
American capitalism as currently practiced clearly redistributes income upward. According to Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, the richest 1 percent of Americans now hold 25 percent of the country’s wealth.
The total income share for the 1 percent has jumped more in the U.S. than in any other major Western country since 1960, according to new research by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. The top 1 percent’s share of income dipped in some European countries and increased by up to 4 percentages elsewhere, but in the good old U.S., land of opportunity, it soared over 9 percentage points.
![thepoliticalfreakshow:
At Least 4 People Were Accidentally Shot By Toddlers This Past Weekend
All week, official Washington is fixated on the question of whether the 14 senators who’ve promised to filibuster any gun safety legislation will succeed in their efforts to maintain the status quo. Meanwhile, gun violence continues unabated in the rest of the nation. In a particularly tragic chapter in our nation’s struggle with such violence, at least four people — including two children — were seriously injured or killed since last weekend in accidental shootings where toddlers obtained loaded weapons:
A Tennessee woman was shot in the stomach by her 2-year-old child on Sunday. Rekia Kid was sleeping with the toddler and her three-week-old baby when the toddler discovered a Glock 9 mm stored underneath her pillow and discharged the weapon. Kid managed to get out of the house and crawl to a neighbor’s porch where she was found by the neighbor, who told local news “[s]he just kept screaming that she didn’t think she was going to make it, she didn’t think she was going to make it and to please please take care of my children.”
Josephine G. Fanning was shot and killed Saturday at a Tennessee barbecue when a 4-year-old boy discharged a handgun owned by Fanning’s husband, Sheriff’s Deputy Daniel Fanning. Fanning had left the loaded gun “for just a moment” on the bed while he went to retrieve another weapon from a locked gun cabinet.
A 6-year-old boy was accidentally shot by his 4-year-old playmate in a quiet residential New Jersey area yesterday. The victim later died of his wounds, with the victim’s uncle telling reporters covering the story “This never should have happened. It’s horrible.”
A 3-year-old died of an accidental self-inflicted gun wound in South Carolina on Tuesday according after finding a gun in an apartment and discharging the weapon. No further details have been released at this time.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/9790735142308445dfd50e84de3352ee/tumblr_ml29r7zKmw1qjo9duo1_500.jpg)
![anarcho-queer:
High School Teacher Under Investigation For Saying “Vagina” During Anatomy Lesson
High school science teacher Tim McDaniel is being investigated by Idaho’s professional standards commission because he allegedly used the word “vagina” while teaching a 10th grade biology lesson on reproduction and anatomy.
According to a report from the Times-News, four parents complained to school officials after learning that McDaniel explained the biology of an orgasm and used the word “vagina” during a lesson on human reproduction in his sophomore science class.
A disciplinary letter from the Idaho State Department of Education also accused McDaniels of showing a video clip in class depicting an infection of genital herpes and teaching about different forms of birth control. The letter also alleges that McDaniels told inappropriate jokes in class.
McDaniel also found himself in hot water for asking his students to write a critical response paper on climate change after showing them “An Inconvenient Truth.”
But his students are defending him, arguing in a petition that parents from their conservative community in Dietrich are trying to push a political agenda by getting their biology teacher fired:
“[T]here are a couple people in the community that are trying to get Mr. McDaniel fired for teaching the reproductive system, climate change, and several other science subjects. All these subjects were taught from the book and in good taste. He cares for each of his students and goes the extra mile to help them all. Now is the time for us to help by supporting him!”
For his part, McDaniel is perplexed by the accusations, telling the Times-News: “I teach straight out of the textbook, I don’t include anything that the textbook doesn’t mention. But I give every student the option not attend this class when I teach on the reproductive system if they don’t feel comfortable with the material.”
“This sort of thing makes you worry about what you teach,” he added. “That’s not right.”
Being a female is a crime to the Puritans.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/6e82d363a863f19a356100fe08c8bbe1/tumblr_mkfwq3sbUv1r4vpxio1_500.jpg)
![thepoliticalfreakshow:
Corrupt Justice: West Point Housekeeper Facing As Much Jail Time As Steubenville Rapist For Stealing Frozen Meatballs
A housekeeper at West Point who was busted with a bag full of frozen meatballs that didn’t belong to her is facing two years in prison on federal charges of larceny and possession of stolen property.
Put in perspective, that’s the same amount of time Trent Mays was sentenced to serve following his conviction in the Steubenville rape trial.
56-year-old Estelle Casimir stands accused of trying to make away with a bag of frozen meatballs that were slated to be served to at the West Point Cadet Mess Hall.
According to court documents, a supervisor became suspicious after spotting Casimir with a grocery bag in her hand.
Confronted, Casimir, who is responsible for cleaning the mess hall latrines and does not handle food, claimed she found the meatballs in a trash container “and was on her way to dispose of them in another trash container.”
An affidavit signed by the operations manager on duty does not specify how many meatballs were in the bag.
At an initial court hearing earlier this month, Casimir pleaded not guilty to the charges. Her next court date is scheduled for April 19th.
In the meantime, she has been forced to look elsewhere for employment after the food services company Watson Services, her employer of 28 years, suspended her pending the outcome of the trial.
“I just sit in the house,” Casimir is quoted as saying. “I don’t have anything to do.”
[photos via AP, Hot Cheap & Easy]
My, my. West Point certainly cares a great deal about its ball-shaped meat.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/331dd71705c5e88abfbcbae02fe2e630/tumblr_mk8t93yAxp1qjo9duo1_500.jpg)
![African American teen invited to ‘KKK’ birthday party
A black student at a Texas junior high school was the victim of routine racial taunts and bullying, including his receiving a fake invitation to a KKK birthday party to be held in his honor, his mother says.
Justin Howard, a seventh-grader at Tomball Junior High School in Tomball, Texas, has been harassed by a group of white students who bullied him because he is black, according to his mother, Tahiyyah Howard.
“I’m just, really, you know, sick of it,” Howard told ABC News affiliate KTRK-TV. “A girl wrote on the board ‘Black Justin’ and my son was really upset.”
The most egregious example, the boy’s mother said, came when Justin received a fake birthday party invitation from two classmates with a Ku Klux Klan theme. It is unclear about how the boy became aware of the note.
“[They] put it on his desk and said that he was invited to a KKK birthday party with lots of fun and games,” said Howard, who has not sought action outside the school.
Tomball school officials confirmed the note but said Justin never saw it. Officials said the students who wrote it had been disciplined.
“Two Tomball Junior High students left a note for a third student that referenced the Ku Klux Klan,” school district spokeswoman Staci Stanfield said in a statement. “The teacher picked up the note before the intended recipient could see it. The campus administrators were notified and took proactive steps by contacting the parent of the intended recipient to inform the parent of the situation.
“The behavior of the two students who wrote the note is not acceptable. Both students who left the note were disciplined according to the District’s Student Code of Conduct,” she added.
Legally, school officials cannot publically disclose information about students, including how specifically they were punished, Stanfield told ABCNews.com.
The victim’s mother told KTRK, “They [the students] need to know that there are consequences and not just one-day suspension where they can go home and play video games all day. I think the parents should teach their kids that being racist or bullying is not OK, no matter if you’re playing around or just being mean. It’s just not OK.”
Howard could not be reached by ABC News to confirm that her son had not seen the note.
Tomball, a Houston suburb of about 10,000 residents, is about 87 percent white and 5 percent black, according to recent census data.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/d31c15374681a0006aa802abe4e94eca/tumblr_mjh2drtJnq1rny7o1o1_500.jpg)
