The non-existent Trump economic miracle.
POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Sunday, August 30, 2026 16:38
VIEWED: 7832
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Goodbye Middle Class: Half Of All American Workers Made Less Than $34,248.45 Last Year
If you are making less than $3,000 a month, you have plenty of company, because about half of the country is in the exact same boat. The Social Security Administration just released new wage statistics for 2019, and they are pretty startling. To me, the most alarming thing in the entire report is the fact that the median yearly wage was just $34,248.45 last year. In other words, half of all American workers made less than $34,248.45 in 2019, and half of all American workers made more than $34,248.45. That isn’t a whole lot of money. In fact, when you divide $34,248.45 by 12 you get just $2,854.05. Needless to say, it is not easy to survive in America today on just $2,854.05 a month, and this may help to explain why we have been seeing so many people fall out of the middle class in recent years.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/goodbye-middle-class-half-
of-all-american-workers-made-less-than-34248-45-last-year
Now, that measure of central tendency - 'the median' - is only slightly less useless in a highly skewed distribution than 'the average'. The number one really wants to see would be 'the mode'. But nobody reports that because it would leave high-income earners out of the picture entirely and paint too accurate a picture of the American workers.
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Quote:Has America always been a rich nation with many poor people? Yes, it has.
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
Goodbye Middle Class: Half Of All American Workers Made Less Than $34,248.45 Last Year . . . this may help to explain why we have been seeing so many people fall out of the middle class in recent years.
And, 1kiki, don't act surprised that the top 1% have figured out how to claw back some of the wages paid to the middleclass. There is only one thing to stop the top 1% . . . the government. But the 1% can control the government because the top 50% of voters, who are doing well enough, gave control to government officials who very loudly declare their allegiance to the 1% who are the top Capitalists.
You can complain, 1kiki, but America won't improve for the bottom 50% of voters as long as voters in the top 50% of wealth or income keep electing officials who will always do what is best for voters in the top 1% of wealth or income. From my position in the top 1% I'm personally thankful that the lower 99% don't clearly comprehend what is so obviously going on because if they did, my taxes would increase and my business would have more limits on what I can do with it.
The US has a lot of money, but it does not look like a developed country
https://web.archive.org/web/20170310142823/https://qz.com/879092/the-u
s-doesnt-look-like-a-developed-country/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Ever heard of Speedy Cash? www.speedycash.com/
They charge 729% interest on Texas loans. www.speedycash.com/rates-and-terms/texas
In a properly run country, that interest rate would get the CEO of Speedy Cash arrested.
In Massachusetts, Speedy Cash is not allowed to operate. The middle class can thank their Senator, Democrat Elizabeth Warren, for pointing out that Speedy Cash is run by crooks. In Texas, GOP Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz can see no problem, and never will, with how this company operates. www.speedycash.com/rates-and-terms/massachusetts
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:Back in 1996, when Eli Lilly’s Humalog first came out, the price for a 1-month supply of insulin was $21. But now 29.3 million patients are paying anywhere from $300 to $800+ a month for their necessary insulin. So, why has the price of insulin increased so much over the years? The world may never know since pharmaceutical companies continue to hold their tongue when asked about it.
Originally posted by reaverfan:
This is Alex Smith. He died this year at age 26 because he couldn't afford insulin in America.
www.ajmc.com/view/the-deadly-costs-of-insulin
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Desperate Trump tries to buy Senior votes with Chump change:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trumps-election-eve-drug-disco
unts-for-seniors-get-snagged/ar-BB1a4kHz
Trump's election-eve drug discounts for seniors get snagged
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s plan to mail millions of seniors a $200 prescription savings card has hit legal and budget roadblocks, making it unlikely the government can carry it out before Election Day.
Democratic lawmakers have raised questions about whether the administration has the authority to order on its own billions of dollars in Medicare spending for what the Democrats say are political reasons. Administration and congressional officials say such questions have bogged down review of the plan by agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the White House Office of Management and Budget.
A White House official had no comment on the status of the prescription cards, which Trump announced with a flourish last month during a health care speech in Charlotte, N.C.
The Medicare agency, or CMS, said in a statement: “We know that many seniors struggle to afford their medication and because of these high costs may forgo treatment. The administration is committed to lowering out-of-pocket costs for our nation’s seniors. We will provide more information about the prescription drug cards soon.”
One administration official said the odds are 75-25 the plan will not happen. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss back-and-forth internal deliberations.
Earlier this month, Reps. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Richard Neal, D-Mass, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., questioned the legality of Trump's plan, saying in a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar that “the president now appears to be attempting to buy votes just weeks before the election using taxpayer dollars.”
The lawmakers' objections appear to have hit a nerve in the administration. Among them:
— The White House asserted that Medicare could legally send out the discount cards under its authority to conduct “demonstration programs” testing new ideas. The $200 would test if extra cash made seniors more likely to stay on their medications and avoid costly hospitalizations. But sending cards to nearly all Medicare recipients is not a test, the lawmakers said. For example, there wouldn't be a control group against which to measure any results. Therefore, such a mass mailing would not meet legal standards for a Medicare demonstration program testing new ideas.
— The cost to taxpayers has been estimated as high as $7.8 billion, not counting administrative expenses. The money would come from Medicare's Supplemental Medical Insurance Trust Fund. But spending for the cards has not been authorized by Congress, which has the power of the purse. A congressional official said that if the Trump administration approves the plan, it in effect would create a budgetary “trap door” through which future administrations could try to spend billions of dollars without congressional oversight. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal analysis.
When Trump announced the plan as part of a Sep. 24 speech calling attention to his health care agenda, it seemed like the discount cards were about to go in the mail. People wondered if they would bear the presidents' name.
The cards would allow seniors to save $200 off their prescription copays. Trump initially said 33 million Medicare recipients would get the cards, but administration and congressional officials said the latest estimate is 39 million.
“Nobody has seen this before,” the president said, with trademark salesmanship. “These cards are incredible. The cards will be mailed out in coming weeks.
“I will always take care of our wonderful senior citizens,” Trump added. “Joe Biden won’t be doing this.”
The plan came as a surprise to rank-and-file officials at HHS and CMS who were expected to carry it out, said the administration official, addi
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But this has been going on for DECADES. Long before Trump, and even long before Obama.
The only thing that happened under Trump is the same thing that happened under Obama, GWB etc: NOTHING. NOTHING happened to reverse the trend.
AFA healthcare costs in the USA ... has anyone wondered why they're SO HIGH in the USA, compared to other nations? Yanno, not just that coverage is incomplete, but that it soaks up 18% of our GDP and we STILL have bad healthcare?
I certainly have. Solve that conundrum, and you've got the healthcare crisis figured out.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
#WEARAMASK
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Quote:There is no conundrum, no confusion about why American healthcare is expensive compared to other countries.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
But this has been going on for DECADES. Long before Trump, and even long before Obama.
The only thing that happened under Trump is the same thing that happened under Obama, GWB etc: NOTHING. NOTHING happened to reverse the trend.
AFA healthcare costs in the USA ... has anyone wondered why they're SO HIGH in the USA, compared to other nations? Yanno, not just that coverage is incomplete, but that it soaks up 18% of our GDP and we STILL have bad healthcare?
I certainly have. Solve that conundrum, and you've got the healthcare crisis figured out.
American healthcare provider prices are incredibly high. The way to rein in the cost of healthcare services is by targeting the massive variation in providers’ prices. We can do that by making prices more transparent, making these markets more dynamic, and really blunting the monopoly power that a lot of large healthcare providers have, which has allowed them to raise prices.
In making these changes, there are certainly roles for insurance companies, employers, and patients, but frankly, the largest role is for the federal government. Right now, for a hospital to get paid by Medicare it has to report quality data. I think hospitals should also be required to report their prices.
And critically, we need antitrust enforcement. We have to stop some of the extraordinary mergers that have been occurring with rapidly increasing frequency over the last 10 to 15 years. That’s what is giving hospitals more market power and allowing them to extract higher prices.
Prices vary tremendously across the U.S. and within geographic areas. Across the country, the price of a knee replacement can vary by up to a factor of 17—the most expensive hospital is 17 times as expensive as the least expensive hospital. Within geographic areas, that can be, for knee replacements, up to a factor of eight. Lower-limb MRIs, when you set aside the reading of the MRI, don’t have much quality variation, yet, as an example, the most expensive hospital in Miami is charging nine times as much for an MRI as the cheapest provider.
https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/why-is-healthcare-so-expensive
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Or, we could just have nationalized free healthcare like every other country in the 1st world.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/484301-22-studies-a
gree-medicare-for-all-saves-money
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Quote:"That's Communism!"
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Or, we could just have nationalized free healthcare like every other country in the 1st world.
I could call Ted Cruz or John Cornyn, my US Senators, to tell me why that can't be done, but it was easier to ask a few Trump lovers at work. Their answers ranged from "That's Socialized Medicine" to "We are not Canadians" to "It would destroy America!"
As long as Republicans have the power, they will never allow free healthcare.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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