SIXTY PERCENT OF AMERICAN JOBS PAY $35,000 OR LESS
You’ve seen the latest jobs data … now here’s the brutal reality behind those numbers.
According to Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse website, nine of the top ten jobs in America pay an average wage of $35,000 or less.
“When you break that down, that means that most of these workers are making less than $3,000 a month before taxes,” Snyder writes. “And once you consider how we are being taxed into oblivion, things become even more frightening. Can you pay a mortgage and support a family on just a couple grand a month? Of course not. In the old days, a single income would enable a family to live a very comfortable middle class lifestyle in most cases. But now those days are long gone. In 2014, both parents are expected to work, and in many cases both of them have to get multiple jobs just in order to break even at the end of the month.”
Indeed … such is the harsh reality of the “New Normal.”
Snyder isn’t pulling these numbers out of his posterior either, he’s getting them straight from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) – specifically the agency’s “Occupational Employment and Wages Summary” document.
The ten most common jobs?
1. Retail salespersons, 4.48 million workers earning $25,370
2. Cashiers 3.34 million workers earning $20,420
3. Food prep and serving staff, 3.02 million workers earning $18,880
4. General office clerk, 2.83 million working earning $29,990
5. Registered nurses, 2.66 million workers earning $68,910
6. Waiters and waitresses, 2.40 million workers earning $20,880
7. Customer service representatives, 2.39 million workers earning $33,370
8. Laborers, and freight and material movers, 2.28 million workers earning $26,690
9. Secretaries and admins (not legal or medical), 2.16 million workers earning $34,000
10. Janitors and cleaners (not maids), 2.10 million workers earning, $25,140
And while those “Top Ten” jobs account for only 21 percent of the workforce, according to the latest federal wage data an astounding 59 percent of all Americans make an average of $35,000 a year or less.
Behold the vanishing American middle class! And the rise of the welfare state!
51 comments
Salaries have declned every year Obama has been in office. Obama is a disaster. People suffer while Obama lives like a king.
I’m doing pretty good myself but my taxes are too damn high!
Tune up stooge.Tell these damn liberals here that us rich folks need a tax cut so they we can invest and create jobs.You know the drill boy,get at it!
On that we agree. I don’t care what letter is behind a name…. there is such a thing as right and wrong, and our economy will continue to fail until we return to INCLUSIVE capitalism.
Why pay people *more*?
They’re doing less, and doing it worse. If they want to compete with the Chinese and the Indians, they’re going to have to lower their expectations.,
Instead of increasing the minimum wage, we should *decrease* it.
And instead of trying to increase the quality of life with health care and infrastructure, we should let the people themselves worry about it.
The only people in this country that *deserve* an income are the wealthy who make jobs, and the people who fight their wars.
This guy gets it!
HEY!
Where’s my check, you mother fucker?
It’s in the mail…
Not Congress!!!!!
I just saw on CNBC, Congress feels they are underpaid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Their $175,000 a year, their living expenses (per diem), their free medical (at taxpayer expense), their free travel on military aircraft, their free vacations and junkets, their exemptions from laws the rest of us have to abude by, their wine women and song just aren’t enough!
These SOBs are out of touch with reality and need to be sent home…ALL of them!!
We need immediate term limits. It appears to me the voters are too dumb to do what is in their own best interest!
Just need a law putting into place three things:
1) Congress’ pay is tied to the median household income.
2) Congressmen can make no income whatsoever outside of their congressional pay.
3) After leaving Congress, congressmen can earn no more than the median household income for the rest of their lives. 100% of pay over the median household income must be forfeited to the government.
Don’t like it? Don’t run. You’re not here to make money, and you’re definitely not going to be using a revolving door on your way out.
How about they don’t get paid to “serve”? That, I think, is how it was intended. That way we would have no professional politicians.
while 172K per year is not a lot to hold residences in two places -and I usually respect your well informed comments – but your points 1 2 and 3 above, who told you that? many legislators make WAAAAY above the median household income in the US once they leave office and there is no limitation. Also, they vest for retirement in 10 years – which is why rep. Bob Freedom fries Ney wouldn’t resign even after being sentenced to federal prison – wanted to try and make it to 10 years.
They vest after only eight (8) years!
” It appears to me the voters are too dumb to do what is in their own best interest!”
Yep!
Term Limits? How is that going to stop the crooks who rule us? You think these no good sociopaths and thieves will somehow develop a conscience if they are restricted by time?
The only thing that term limits will do is make these creeps go into triple overdrive to steal as much as they can while the getting is good.
If you think Obama is increasing “the quality of life with health care and infrastructure” you may be the BIGGEST Dumb@$$ to ever stride the face of the planet…
Access to healthcare is less now…and it costs more…if you can get it…
Infrastructure is funded by productivity and taxpayers’ income. There has been less money to fund ANYTHING because of the high unemployment rate, and lower wages and salaries…On top of that: Everything, from gas and food to machinery and product, costs considerably more…
What’s that on your shirt?.. no.. on your shoulder… next to your collar… yeah.. looks.. looks like COOTIES!!!
Once you go just below the surface, like ALL liberals you fold like the Dumb@$$ you are.
Doctors gotta pay for that new Ferrari somehow! The entire medical industry is overpaid compared to the rest of us.
So you want to let the Gov’t come in and tell Individuals and Private Business what they can get paid for saving peoples’ lives…That’s some of YOUR business…and you think the gov’t does it better…
We’ve had to purge Communist Pieces of $#!* like you before…I beg you to try to tell me what I can make, w/o the US Military behind you in the form of the Communist Obama..
I beg you to come to my office, and try to get between me and my clients, and you tell me I’m making too much after I qualified myself… I BEG you, you Communist, freedom-hating Mother-F*#ker… I beg you…
Translation: I beg you to come into my one bedroom apartment and tell my neighbor that $60 bucks is too much to pay for cutting his grass.
Funny how liberals are so quick to impugn people you ID as beneath you..alll the while claiming support for the least of us…Liar much…
Liar?
Funny, I expose you as a lying hypocrite and you dare to turn it on me? Wouldn’t be the first time…
The only thing you EXPOSE, is yourself to children on the playground…Pervert..NAMBLA Much?
You liberals are STUPID, and if you are engaged in any conversation, where you’re asked to think, instead of being fed by your puppet masters…you look like F*#king Idiots…and you’re pretty sound proof of that…
What! Where?.
Quit trying to flee from what you are….ALL pedophiles are liberal by definition…
Without speculation you would have nothng:
Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo was arrested for having sex with a 5-year old boy.
Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty to sexually molesting 13 and 14 year old girls.
Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.
Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.
Republican Mayor John Gosek was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls.
Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.
Republican Committeeman John R. Curtain was charged with molesting a teenage boy and unlawful sexual contact with a minor.
Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.
Republican zoning supervisor, Boy Scout leader and Lutheran church president Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered.
Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.
Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.
Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.
Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.
Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.
ALL those crimes by all those liberal sexual deviants and homosexuals will NEVER change YOU from what YOU are…no matter how you beg and plead for me to see that liberal perverts abound..you are what you are…
Telling me people lie about what they are, just indicts YOU….even more…
No doubt, you’re the biggest lying ass idiot ever to shit between a pair of shoes, GT. Hell, you’re probally a damn sex offender…Tell us some more outragous shit…
Meltdown much??….Idiot…LMAO…
BigT, why, Lawd, why, are all these homosexuals sucking your dick? Oh, sorry, Grand Tango! Like the change of name: Way more gay! Congrats!!
Tell ya what…. when I get to the scene of your traffic collision and you’re trapped in a car that’s beginning to burn, we’ll negotiate THEN on how much you’ll pay me to extract you. Same level of duress the medical profession uses with the public.
How about you tell everyone where you work, since you are offering….
Oh, and unlike you, I actually PAID the piper for freedom while some little punk like you sits behind a desk, makes money, and PRETENDS to be patriotic. You aren’t… you’re just greedy and self-absorbed.
While you’re sitting on your @$$…waiting for a traffic accident, why are you getting paid???…Will you give that money back???…not to mention, a lot of fellow citizens will help, if you decide to EXTORT money to help…
And: it sounds like your gig requires a lot of loafing…and now you want a F*#king medal for doing your job…the little bit of time you are actually called out…
So NOW you expect me to work for free? What kind of a cheesy pseudo capitalist are you? Would you expect a doctor to help you for free? A car mechanic when your car won’t stop? I suppose only YOU have the right to be paid for your work. Anyone else is some kinda communofascist, right? GT, you are SUCH a troll. Sic in drag, maybe?
Sitting on your @$$, waiting for someone to get hurt, so you can feel good about your necessity, is NOT capitalism…
You’re the one positing the idea that you’ll blackmail a perishing burn victim, to validate yourself…
If you are going to present Dumb@$$ ideas…don’t get mad when I Slap the $#!* out of you w/ your own stupidity…
Like I said: If you stand around scratching your @$$, as you suggested, while a person burns…other RESPONSIBLE citizens will do the job you’re getting paid for..So STFU…We don’t need people like you..
You’ve been getting slapped silly all over this page, yet, you’re too dumb to notice.
That post has such a serious tone, yet is so absolute batsh*t crazy I don’t really know if you are serious or being sarcastic. Serious, you are nuts. Sarcastic, excellent.
Behold trickle down economics!
Moron!
The job creators have been *busy*!
I thought it was “trickle ON economics.”
Which is why tax relief should target income at or below the average income, -not- the rich, and target small businesses, -not- multi-billion dollar corporations.
Unfortunately, small businesses and the working class don’t have billions to spend buying politicians like the corporations and the rich do, which is just wonderful now that campaign finance has been dealt another mortal blow.
Uh, state and federal workers are the new middle class. Manufacturing middle class jobs have vanished. The 59% that makes less than 35k a year is paying taxes for a state and federal workforce. State and federal jobs start at 35k and can max out at 250k on top of a pension and generous, 80% paid by the 59%, healthcare coverage. This is business model is unsustainable.
Keep fantasizing. Public workers (local and state, not federal) are mostly in the 35k or less range. Stop raiding pension and benefits systems and they would be self-sufficient. State jobs do NOT “start out” at 35K unless you are a Haley appointee.
You might also want to try comparing apples to apples. What are the requirements for the jobs in question? A 4yr degree? A 2yr degree? GED? What quality of service are you willing to accept? How does a 30-35K job requiring a 4yr degree and sometimes life-and-death responsibility (with commensurate legal liability) sound compared to what the private sector would pay for the same level of responsibility?
You could not be any more wrong.
I know these seem to be hard jobs to get.
“Scary Jobs Reality” as long as it’s just “job” that’s all it ever will be and you may or may not keep it.
It’s the same for a “career”. I’d suggest you read some stories of the 40+ year olds mutli-year unemployed. Its a scary future.
And that’s great if you are under 40, but the problem is eventually it will affect you too, and that magic age when you are too old to get a job gets younger every year.
“a scary future” sorry don’t agree. It’s the individuals responsibility to make them selves a valuable asset. I’ve witnessed many 40+ year olds with no desire to improve and think they should be able to live on their laurels.
Well then since you’ve seen it, then ageism doesn’t exist at all and all 40+ year old people who are long term unemployed are simply out of date. That’s why they can’t even get a job at Lowe’s or Wal Mart when they have college degrees and professional certifications; they’re all complacent!
Don’t worry sport, the younger you are the lower that magic number of being unemployable gets. 20 years ago it was 55; now its 40. 15 years from now it might be 30.
Well sport, it’s always been tough out there. If you’re not willing to move or improve yourself you will be left behind and that has not just happened in the past 20 years. The world owes you nothing never has, never will.
Damn nice package and VPL