I.am... CATHY

It’s amazing how music and working out can make everything soo much better

I graduated with a business degree and feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on in today’s world:  Plain and simple… it doesn’t look pretty (we’re in a recession, the housing market is in the pits if you’re a seller, unemployment rates are high, etc); but money is still flowing…. people are always at the mall, going out to eat, watching movies, spending money on the latest and greatest smartphone, etc.

When I see people spending their money leisurely I forget how bad the economy is; but as I read this article from Business Insider, 50 Economic Numbers For 2011 That Are Almost Too Hard to Believe, I realized just saying we’re in a recession, the housing market is in the pits, and unemployment rates are high is a BIG understatement. 

Definitely recommend reading the article here.

Here’s are ten numbers that stood out to me:

• 48% of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.  (According to CNN Money, “The government defines the poverty line as income of $22,314/year for a family of four and $11,139 for an individual.”)
• The average amount of time that a worker stays unemployed in the US in now over 40 weeks.
• There are fewer payroll jobs in the US today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.
• According to the US Census Bureau, 18% of all homes in the state of Flordia are sitting vacant.  That figure is 63% larger than it was just ten years ago.
• The US spends about $4 on goods and services from China for every $1 that China spends on g&s from the US.
• It is being projected that the US trade deficit for 2011 will be $558.2 billion.
• Child poverty is 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% - Atlanta, 52.6% - Cleveland, and 53.6% - Detroit.
• Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30%.
• For fiscal year 2011, the US federal government had a budget deficit of nearly 1.3 trillion dollars.  That was the third year in a row that our budget deficit has topped one trillion dollars.
• If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the US national debt at a rate of $1/ second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.