Why do we say this? Just look at the facts:
- Unemployment remains persistently high despite over three years of "recovery", nearly double what it was in 2007.
- Even as unemployment has begun to slowly ebb and people are returning to work, they are taking lower-wage and less secure jobs than before.
- As a result, poverty has increased in recent years, especially among the working poor.
- The middle class continues to shrink nearly every year.
- Meanwhile, the rich continue to get richer. Corporate profits and the Dow Jones are at or close to record highs. And the top 1% now owns over 40% of the nation's financial wealth.
- In fact, a mere 400 individuals have more wealth than the bottom 50% of Americans combined.
- Statistically, an individual is more likely to go from riches to rags than rags to riches. Social mobility has mostly one direction now--DOWN.
- The problems of unemployment, poverty, inequality, and downward mobility are especially true for today's under-30 generation, as America continues to ruthlessly eat its young.