US dystopia

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Tent encampments — Oakland city officials count 90 of them — are now as much a part of the landscape as the bars and restaurants that cater to the city’s rising affluence. Many Americans are one medical emergency, one layoff, one family disaster away from bankruptcy or losing the roofs over their heads.

How a Tuxedoed Sommelier Wound Up Homeless in California - The New York Times

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For much of the world, donating blood is purely an act of solidarity; a civic duty that the healthy perform to aid others in need. The idea of being paid for such an action would be considered bizarre. But in the United States, it is big business. Indeed, in today’s wretched economy, where around 130 million Americans admit an inability to pay for basic needs like food, housing or healthcare, buying and selling blood is of the few booming industries America has left. 

The number of collection centers in the United States has more than doubled since 2005 and blood now makes up well over 2 percent of total U.S. exports by value. To put that in perspective, Americans’ blood is now worth more than all exported corn or soy products that cover vast areas of the country’s heartland. The U.S. supplies fully 70 percent of the world’s plasma, mainly because most other countries have banned the practice on ethical and medical grounds. Exports increased by over 13 percent, to $28.6 billion, between 2016 and 2017, and the plasma market is projected to “grow radiantly,” according to one industry report. The majority goes to wealthy European countries; Germany, for example, buys 15 percent of all U.S. blood exports. China and Japan are also key customers.

But in order to generate such enormous profits, these vampiric corporations consciously target the poorest and most desperate Americans. One study found that the majority of donors in Cleveland generate more than a third of their income from “donating” blood. The money they receive, notes Professor Kathryn Edin of Princeton University, is literally “the lifeblood of the $2 a day poor.” Professor H. Luke Schaefer of the University of Michigan, Edin’s co-author of $2 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, told MintPress News:

The massive increase in blood plasma sales is a result of an inadequate and in many places non-existent cash safety net, combined with an unstable labor market. Our experience is people need the money, that’s the primary reason people show up at plasma centers.”

Almost half of America is broke, and 58 percent of the country is living paycheck to paycheck, with savings of less than $1000. 37 million Americans go to bed hungry, including one-sixth of New Yorkers and almost half of South Bronx residents. And over half a million sleep on the streets on any given night, with many millions more in vehicles or relying on friends or family. It is in this context that millions in the red have turned to selling blood to make ends meet. In a very real sense then, these corporations are harvesting the blood of the poor, literally sucking the life out of them.

Respondents all agreed that they were indeed being exploited, but in more ways than one. Desperate Americans are allowed to donate twice per week (104 times per year). But losing that much plasma could have serious health consequences, most of which have not been studied Professor Schaefer warns, stressing that more research is necessary. Around 70 percent of donors experience health complications. Donors have a lower protein count in their blood, putting them at greater risk of infections and liver and kidney disorders. Many regulars suffer from near-permanent fatigue and are borderline anemic. All this for an average of $30 per visit.

Harvesting the Blood of America's Poor: The Latest Stage of Capitalism

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This reflects just how many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Depending on the survey, that figure runs from half of workers making under $50,000 (according to Nielsen data) to 74% of all employees (per recent reports from both the American Payroll Association and the National Endowment for Financial Education.) And almost three in 10 adults have no emergency savings at all, according to Bankrate’s latest Financial Security Index.

Even many in the upper class are seeing their six-figure incomes slip through their fingers. The Nielsen study found that one in four families making $150,000 a year or more are living paycheck-to-paycheck, while one in three earning between $50,000 and $100,000 also depend on their next check to keep their heads above water. And MarketWatch readers had a lot to say about this popular story from 2019, which showed how a $350,000 salary in an expensive city like San Francisco or NYC might barely qualify as middle class.

So what’s happening? Stagnant wages coupled with a rising cost of living in many places has hurt some households. A recent Bankrate.com report found that half of American workers didn’t get a pay raise last year. And crippling debt from student loans, credit cards and/or unexpected medical expenses is also taking a huge bite out of many workers’ take-home pay.

A shocking number of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck - MarketWatch

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Here’s a sad reality: In order to raise a family in an expensive coastal city like San Francisco or New York, you’ve now got to make $350,000 or more a year. You can certainly live on less, but it won’t be easy if your goal is to raise a family, save for your children’s education, save for your own home and save for retirement (so you can actually retire by a reasonable age). A middle-class lifestyle is a reasonable ask. But thanks to inflation, it has gotten a lot more expensive if you want to have children. The median wealth of middle-income Americans has stayed flat for years, at about $87,140, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest Survey of Consumer Finances. Yet, prices for things such as housing and college tuition have risen tremendously.

You now need to make $350,000 a year to live a middle-class lifestyle

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Going extra light at the grocery store. Cutting down on medical supplies. Buying clothing and household supplies secondhand. These are just some of the many ways many Americans are making it work when money is tight. For about a third of Americans, this is a regular financial stress, with 32% running out of money before their next paycheck hits, according to a new survey fielded by Salary Finance of over 2,700 U.S. adults working at companies with over 500 employees.

32% of workers run out of cash before payday

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Bashing European countries and their social and economic programs is a popular pastime among the “American exceptionalists” in right-wing media. But when economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton compare the American working class to the working class in European countries, it is U.S. workers — not European workers — they describe as suffering from “deaths of despair.” And journalists David Leonhardt and Stuart A. Thompson, in an op-ed for the New York Times, draw on Case and Deaton’s data to explain why U.S. workers are more likely to feel worried, pessimistic or stressed out than their counterparts in other developed countries.

Leonhardt and Thompson note that Case and Deaton’s research on “deaths of despair,” first published in 2015, found that “many white working-class Americans in their forties and fifties were dying of suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse.” “But as Case and Deaton continued digging into the data,” the Times writers explain, “it became clear that the grim trends didn’t apply only to middle-aged whites. Up and down the age spectrum, deaths of despair have been surging for people without a four-year college degree.” Case and Deaton address the problem in their new book, “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism,” and the economists view working class life as being harder in the U.S. than it is in any other developed country.

According to Case, “European countries have faced the same kind of technological change we have, and they’re not seeing the people killing themselves with guns or drugs or alcohol. There is something unique about the way the U.S. is handling this.” Leonhardt and Thompson offer some reasons why U.S. workers without a college degree are more prone to despair than their counterparts in other developed countries. “Inequality has risen more in the United States — and middle-class incomes have stagnated more severely — than in France, Germany, Japan or elsewhere,” Leonhardt and Thompson observe. “Large corporations have increased their market share, and labor unions have shriveled — leaving workers with little bargaining power. Outsourcing has become the norm, which means that executives often see low-wage workers not as colleagues, but as expenses.” To make matters worse, Leonhardt and Thompson assert, the U.S. suffers from “by far the world’s most expensive health care system”— which “acts as a tax on workers” and “fails to keep many people healthy” either physically or mentally.

‘Deaths of despair’: Economists’ work reveals the grim forces preying on American workers – Alternet.org

• Europe suffers from the same forces of change like globalization and technological change, but it doesn't have this death of despair problem as inequality isn't nearly as high, wage growth (at least until recently) has been higher than in the US and they have much easier and cheaper access to healthcare and education.
  

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Millions of ordinary Americans are facing rising and unaffordable bills for running water, and risk being disconnected or losing their homes if they cannot pay, a landmark Guardian investigation has found. Exclusive analysis of 12 US cities shows the combined price of water and sewage increased by an average of 80% between 2010 and 2018, with more than two-fifths of residents in some cities living in neighbourhoods with unaffordable bills.

Revealed: millions of Americans can’t afford water as bills rise 80% in a decade | US news | The Guardian

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So that’s what it takes to survive in today’s America. About $30,000 a year for a single person without dependents in the average city – a little less in some cities, and much, much more for families and anyone who lives in a major city like San Francisco or New York. But we estimate that at least 27 million U.S. workers don’t earn enough to hit that very low threshold of $30,000, based on the latest occupation wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a government agency, from May 2020. We believe this is a conservative estimate and that the number of people with jobs who earn less than what’s necessary to afford the necessities of life is likely much higher.

Forget the American Dream – millions of working Americans still can't afford food and rent

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One in three American adults — more than 70 million people — have some type of arrest or criminal record. To put this in perspective, about the same number of Americans have college degrees right now. Unfortunately, these Americans, who were incarcerated or have a conviction on their record, are essentially unable to secure good jobs in this country. Nearly half of formerly incarcerated people are unemployed one year after leaving prison. That is a moral outrage.

This group is ready to work and deserves a second chance — an opportunity to fill the millions of job openings across the country. Yet our criminal justice system continues to block them from doing so. Currently, financial, legal and logistical roadblocks prevent those who have paid their debt to society from re-entering the work force. Barriers like occupational licensing rules that keep people with records from getting jobs and a history of systemic racism in our criminal justice system disproportionately impact communities of color, especially Black people, who represent 35 percent of formerly incarcerated people but only 12 percent of the U.S. population, according to a 2020 Brennan Center report.

Opinion | If You Paid Your Debt to Society, You Should Be Allowed to Work - The New York Times

• Written by Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase
  

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Deaths of despair, morbidity and emotional distress continue to rise in the US. The increases are largely borne by those without a four-year college degree—the majority of American adults. For many less-educated Americans, the economy and society are no longer providing the basis for a good life. Concurrently, all-cause mortality in the US is diverging by education—falling for the college-educated and rising for those without a degree—something not seen in other rich countries. We review the rising prevalence of pain, despair, and suicide among Americans without a BA. Pain and despair created a baseline demand for opioids, but the escalation of addiction came from pharma and its political enablers. We examine “the politics of despair,” how less-educated people have abandoned and been abandoned by the Democratic Party. While healthier states once voted Republican in presidential elections, now the least-healthy states do. We review the evidence on whether or not deaths of despair have risen during the COVID pandemic. More broadly, excess mortality from COVID has not increased the ratio of all-cause mortality rates for those with and without a four-year degree, but has instead replicated the pre-existing mortality ratio.

The Great Divide: Education, Despair and Death | NBER