The young and the jobless – Half of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 are unemployed or underemployed, in the US. Social Security short fall highlights deeper reality of economy.
The news for young Americans doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Earlier this week it was announced that Social Security will be running out of funds by 2033, three years earlier than expected. What this means if nothing is changed is that future retirees will receive only 75 percent of expected payouts. Not a [...]
The university of financialization – science and math graduates opt to go into the gambling fields of Wall Street banking instead of building productive jobs for society. Many non-tech majors choose lower paying fields while going into massive debt. Youth summer employment drops from 60 to 46 percent in last decade.
Going to college has always been a dream for many Americans. Parents have high hopes for their children going to a good school and coming out with a degree that has made them more well rounded as citizens. But this desire may not be coinciding with the marketing jargon that spews out from the industry. [...]
The catastrophe of our economy for the young American worker. Average college debt higher than typical new automobile cost, annihilation of pensions, and younger Americans moving back home because of financial necessity.
The economy for young Americans might as well be in a parallel universe to the stock market run since early 2009. Talks of recovery must fall on confused ears as many young college graduates compete for fewer jobs with higher amounts of student debt. In the last decade college graduates have encountered the highest tuition [...]
Crossing the student debt point of no return – for-profit colleges have default rates now rivaling subprime mortgage debt. $1 trillion in student loan debt on the horizon while college graduate wages fall for the decade.
The student loan market is back in the news as it makes its unrelenting march to the $1 trillion mark. This crippling figure comes in the face of a decade of lost wages for middle class Americans. Just like the housing bubble people were supplementing a disappearing middle class with more debt. The allure of [...]
The four horsemen of the middle class apocalypse – what does it say that we as a nation bailed out the financially wealthy too big to fail banks yet failed to bail out the middle class?
What made the U.S. the envy of the world was the belief that if you worked hard enough and had the right kind of grit and intelligence that you would be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor. This is what built the solid middle class after World War II. The majority of people [...]
College education becomes a predator’s lounge for Wall Street and the government – Since 2000 the real cost of college is up by 23 percent yet the real earnings of college graduates is down by 11 percent.
The cost of going to college seems to defy the rules of fundamental economics and basic gravity. Over the last decade the real earnings of college graduates has fallen yet the cost of a four year education continues to go up almost oblivious to this fact. These kinds of dislocations in markets typically signify bubbles [...]
Student loan shark industry – total revolving debt contracts during recession while student loan debt increases by a stunning 80 percent on an annual basis. A college degree for working at McDonald’s?
College sticker shock is probably stunning many parents as college aged students now sign their intent to register at thousands of schools across the country. You can almost feel the panic when Johnny or Suzie tells mommy and daddy she is going to University of Break the Bank while they watch their home equity plummet. [...]
College Marauders – Student loan debt inches to $900 billion when only in 2000 it was at $200 billion – Most expensive colleges in country charging nearly $60,000 per year in tuition.
College education is a dream for many Americans. What the current recession is showing us is that having a college degree is a substantial benefit in getting ahead as long as you don’t put yourself into the abyss of student loan debt. This has been magnified by the fact that low skilled work and blue [...]
A lesson in college debt – Student loan debt increasing at a rate of $170,000 per minute. Student loan debt will hit $1 trillion in 2012. For-profit schools take the place of subprime mortgages.
College loosely defined is an educational institution or as we are now seeing in the US a place where young people go to dive into a pool of debt. A college education was never a guarantee to a lucrative and well paying career. In a time when the middle class was more robust college was [...]
What does it mean to be Middle Class in 2010? – No College Degree, Massive Amounts of Debt, One Health Crisis from Bankruptcy, and Beholden to the Banking Elite.
Being middle class today does not carry the financial security that it once carried in the 1950s and 1960s. Interestingly enough, many Americans at that time did not own stocks yet somehow they managed well because they had access to affordable housing without toxic mortgages and many had the ability to work with one company [...]


