I was unfamiliar with this site, but someone in my tweet stream posted the title with a link to this story last night so I thought I'd pass it along. It appears to come from a site that makes ZeroHedge look like a raging bull 
… one of these 'survivorist' (sp?) type of websites. That said each of the 50 stats come with a verifiable source so it's not hyperbole. Many of these will be familiar to long time readers – they deal with food stamps (which when I began blogging was a benefit for 1 in 11 Americans, and now covers 1 in 8…. including 1 in 4 children), the 'benefit' to the unemployment rate from the low participation rate, the lack of retirement savings, the fact nearly 1 in 5 dollars of "income" in America is now a transfer payment, the hordes of adult children now forced to live with parents, the fact many jobs that we lost were middle or high income … and they have been replaced by low income jobs, etc. Glad to see someone else in this world has been keeping track of these issues other than me.
A couple of these are new in terms of we knew the trend, but the actual #s are startling – such as the huge drop in % of men working now versus a few decades ago.
Please go to The Economic Collapse for the full list of 50, but here are some fun ones to start off:
#1 A staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.
#2 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be "low income" or impoverished.
#3 If the number of Americans that "wanted jobs" was the same today as it was back in 2007, the "official" unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to 11 percent.
#6 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.
#10 According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.
#11 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
#12 Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.
#21 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.
#23 As I have written about previously, 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 are now living with their parents.
#30 The retirement crisis in the United States just continues to get worse. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.
#33 Today, the "too big to fail" banks are larger than ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.
#34 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.
#40 Sadly, child poverty is absolutely exploding all over America. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4% of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1% of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6% of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.
#42 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.
#43 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.
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