SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the need-bigger-paychecks-or-shorter-weeks dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
America doesn't have a jobs crisis. It has a 'good jobs' crisis – where too much employment is insecure, and poorly paid
The official rate of unemployment in America has plunged to a remarkably low 3.8%. The Federal Reserve forecasts that the unemployment rate will reach 3.5% by the end of the year.
But the official rate hides more troubling realities: legions of college grads overqualified for their jobs, a growing number of contract workers with no job security, and an army of part-time workers desperate for full-time jobs. Almost 80% of Americans say they live from paycheck to paycheck, many not knowing how big their next one will be.
[...] The typical American worker now earns around $44,500 a year, not much more than what the typical worker earned in 40 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Although the US economy continues to grow, most of the gains have been going to a relatively few top executives of large companies, financiers, and inventors and owners of digital devices.
[...] Not even the current low rate of unemployment is forcing employers to raise wages. Contrast this with the late 1990s, the last time unemployment dipped close to where it is today, when the portion of national income going into wages was 3% points higher than it is today.
[...] By the mid-1950s more than a third of all private-sector workers in the United States were unionized. In subsequent decades public employees became organized, too. Employers were required by law not just to permit unions but to negotiate in good faith with them. This gave workers significant power to demand better wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions. (Agreements in unionized industries set the benchmarks for the non-unionized).
[...] Today, fewer than 7% of private-sector workers are unionized, and public-employee unions are in grave jeopardy, not least because of the supreme court ruling. The declining share of total US income going to the middle since the late 1960s – defined as 50% above and 50% below the median – correlates directly with that decline in unionization. (See chart below).
[...] This great shift in bargaining power, from workers to corporations, has pushed a larger portion of national income into profits and a lower portion into wages than at any time since the second world war. In recent years, most of those profits have gone into higher executive pay and higher share prices rather than into new investment or worker pay. Add to this the fact that the richest 10% of Americans own about 80% of all shares of stock (the top 1% owns about 40%), and you get a broader picture of how and why inequality has widened so dramatically.
[...] It is no coincidence that all three branches of the federal government, as well as most state governments, have become more "business-friendly" and less "worker-friendly" than at any time since the 1920s. As I've noted, Congress recently slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. [...] The federal minimum wage has not been increased since 2009, and is now about where it was in 1950 when adjusted for inflation.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nuke on Friday August 03 2018, @12:50PM (5 children)
I took the first test too, and even allowing for the fact that I am a European, it is bullshit. Skipped the first question as it is about US healthcare costs, but seeing we have just been told that 80% of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck, I wonder you don't all die at 65 or soon after - or long before. Second question was badly worded "If you purchase a bond and interest rates rise, what will happen to the price of the bond?"; well in the UK you cannot generally sell a bond once you have bought it (if that is what they mean) - that's why it is called a "bond". Maybe there are exceptions.
Third question, how long you expect to live after the age of 65, is irrrelevant financially to me and most in UK - in retirement we generally live on pensions till death not savings. Anyway, I don't go on average; in my 50's I don't have anything wrong with me and never have had. Last question - rate of inflation of tuition fees - irrelevant except for people paying for tuition.
The more I read about the USA the more I think it must be hell to live there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @02:27PM (2 children)
If your markets have a modicum of freedom, one will get organized that can purchase your bond before maturity, conversely sell you one. If I had a UK bond, I'm sure I could liquidate it within a week.
In the US we "live" on social security in retirement too. Many Americans prefer some freedom on how they live in retirement though. Social security is our involuntary safety net, it is up to us to plan for the luxuries we will want to enjoy in retirement.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday August 03 2018, @08:21PM (1 child)
Yes, you can cash it in early, but only for the price you paid for it, and probably less than that to cover their "expenses". ie you will get no interest if you cash in before the term. The question in the quiz seemed to concern a scenario of selling it to a third party. I don't know of UK bonds that are transferable like that, but I'm not saying they don't exist.
https://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/savings/fixed-rate-bond/features-and-benefits [nationwide.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @09:12PM
I mean at Present Value, of the principal and remaining interest payments.
What you are describing is called a Certificate of Deposit in the US. Those don't usually have paper certificates to be traded easily, but we could still come to a legal agreement, where I pay you a discount on the maturity value in exchange for your promise to pay me the maturity value at the maturity date. How much of a discount, that will be based on remaining run time, current interest rates and your credit risk.
In your own example, instead of "getting no interest", the bank will charge a flat 90 day's interest. That is probably the worst deal you could possibly get, but the easiest and most liquid market since you have no paper that documents an obligation from someone with a better credit risk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @11:07PM (1 child)
http://gflec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Finlit_paper_16_F2_singles.pdf [gflec.org]
So what you are saying is that most of the world is financially illiterate except americans because you think some test is bullshit?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_literacy [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday August 04 2018, @08:02AM
Not at all. I think the test is bullshit.
Its a lot like many other tests I have taken, which more accurately measure the correlation to how I think with the way the test-maker thinks, and tests next to nothing about either one of us.
Some of those tests are damned frustrating... like those "which is next in the sequence" tests. I may see another sequence, be able to demonstrate why I believe my answer is just as valid as the answer the test-maker said, and I am still wrong. Well, according to the proctor, I am wrong.
All I believe the test was doing was correlating my way of thinking to the one who designed the test. Neither one of us are God. I absolutely hate those things when they show up on employment screening exams, and I am faced with your typical HR drone which seems to have the mental capacity of a washing machine.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]