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1. Since the recession began in 2007, the number of Americans receiving disability benefits has risen by 1.6 million, and the number of Americans employed has fallen by 4.8 million.
2. From 1929 to 1932, the total amount of money paid out in wages fell by 60%, according to historian Frederick Lewis Allen. By contrast, from 2007-2009, total American wages fell less than 5%. What we experienced in recent years was nothing close to the Great Depression.
3. A Honda Civic hybrid starts at US$24,200 and gets 44 miles per gallon. A Civic with a normal gas engine starts at US$16,000 and gets 39 MPG. If you drive 15,000 miles a year and gas averages US$4 a gallon, it will take 47 years for the hybrid to justify its cost over the traditional model.
4. At the height of his success, Andrew Carnegie’s annual income was 20,000 times the average American’s wage, according to historian Frederick Lewis Allen. That’s the equivalent of about US$720 million in today’s economy. In 2010, hedge fund manager John Paulson earned US$4.9 billion, or nearly seven times what Carnegie earned in his prime. The key difference: Carnegie made steel to construct buildings. Paulson bought derivatives to bet against them
5. For the 2012-2013 fiscal year, California will spend US$8.7 billion on prisons and US$4.8 billion on its UC and state college systems.
6. The U.S. makes up less than 5% of the world’s population, but a third of the world’s spending on pharmaceuticals, according to the IMS Institute for Healthcare.
7. If you earn minimum wage, you’ll need to work 923 hours to pay for a year at an average public four-year college. In 1980, it took 254 hours.
8. Federal government spending declined year over year in the third quarter of 2011 for the first time since 1955.
9. In 1914, Henry Ford made the unprecedented move of paying line workers US$5 for an eight-hour shift — double the going rate. Adjusted for inflation, that works out to around US$14 an hour in today’s dollars. By contrast, a New York Times article broke down an average auto worker’s 2008 salary, including insurance and paid vacation, and came to US$45 to US$55 an hour.
10. As a percentage of GDP, government spending was higher in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan than it will be this fiscal year (23.5% vs. 23.3%, respectively), according to data by the Tax Policy Centre.
11. More government jobs were eliminated on net in 2010 than in any other year since at least 1939. As a percentage of government workers, the decline was the largest since 1947.
12. The median American family’s net worth fell to US$77,300 in 2010 from US$126,400 in 2007, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance. That erased nearly two decades of accumulated wealth.
13. A study of retired investors between 1999 and 2009 showed those who hired a stockbroker underperformed those managing their own money by 1.5% a year. “Fees accounted for only about half the gap,†writes Jason Zweig of The Wall Street Journal.
14. Only 52% of American families say they were able to save anything in 2010, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance.
15. â€In 2010, 6.0 percent of families reported that their spending usually exceeds their income,†according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance.
16. According to the Boston Consulting Group, manufacturing wages, benefits and taxes are US$22.30 an hour in America, compared with US$2 an hour in China. But since American factory workers are more productive, China’s effective labour costs are only 55% lower than Americans, and may drop to less than a third later this decade.
17. According to The New York Times: “In the last five years, the United States and Canada combined have become the fastest-growing sources of new oil supplies around the world, overtaking producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia.â€
18. According to writer Tim Noah, average stock options granted to CEOs between 1992 and 2000 rose from US$800,000 to US$7 million, and average total compensation quadrupled.
19. According to analyst JW Mason: “In 2007, [nonfinancial corporate] earnings were US$750 billion, dividends were US$480 billion, and netstock repurchases were US$790 billion.†In other words, businesses paid shareholders nearly double what they earned.
20. Oil production at America’s Eagle Ford was 787 barrels in 2004, 308,000 barrels in 2009, and 36.6 million barrels last year.
21. In 1989, the CEOs of the seven largest U.S. banks earned an average of 100 times what a typical household made. By 2007, more than 500 times.
22. In 1990, the three largest U.S. banks held 10% of the industry’s assets. By 2008, the top three controlled 40% of the assets.
23. Clean water and sewers were voted “the greatest medical advance†since 1840 by readers of the British Journal of Medicine.
24. America is home to less than 5% of the world’s population, but nearly a quarter of its prisoners.
25. According Dartmouth political scientist Dean Lacy, states that receive more federal government spending than they contribute in tax revenue tend to support Republican candidates, who typically vow to cut spending.
26. According to economists from the International Monetary Fund and analysis by Bloomberg, implicit government subsidies to large U.S. banks roughly equal their annual profits.
27. After new bank regulations go into effect, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) says 70% of customers with less than US$100,000 in deposits or investments will be unprofitable for the bank.
28. According to John Cawley of Cornell and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University, obese people incur annual medical costs US$2,741 higher than non-obese people, or almost US$200 billion nationwide.
29. In 2007, the Congressional Budget Office estimated federal tax receipts would be US$3.4 trillion in 2012. In reality, they’ll be around US$2.5 trillion. Again, the future is unpredictable. Always.
30. Many talk about how much we import from China, but few discuss how much we sell to them. Exports from the U.S. to China were US$19.2 billion in 2001, and US$104 billion in 2011.
31. As recently as 1975, China wasn’t one of American’s top 10 trading partners. The world changes fast.
32. According to economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, 80% of all income growth from 1980 to 2005 went to the top 1% of wage earners.
33. From 1970 to 2012, median household income increased at one-tenth the rate it did from 1949-1979.
34. If you’re fed up with unemployment caused by offshoring, you’ll love this: According to a 2006 Government Accountability Organisation study, the processing of unemployment insurance claims are partially offshored in several states.
35. We tend to underestimate how powerful the agriculture boom has been in the last century. The 1952 book The Big Change describes life in America in the year 1900: “In most parts of the United States people were virtually without fresh fruit and green vegetables from late autumn to late spring.â€
36. The first American hotel to offer every guest a private bathroom didn’t open until 1907.
37. According to biographer Ron Chernow, John D. Rockefeller’s net worth peaked at US$900 million in 1913. That equaled 2.3% of the U.S. economy. A comparable net worth today would be US$340 billion, or eight times richer than Warren Buffett.
38. Some people don’t see progress coming. In 1906, future President Woodrow Wilson said the automobile offered “a picture of the arrogance of wealth.â€
39. Housing may be turning faster than you think. According to David Wessel, “The fraction of homes that are vacant is at its lowest level since 2006.â€
40. According to Bankrate.com, nearly half of Americans don’t have enough savings to cover three months expenses. Worth noting: The average duration of unemployment is now 10 months.
2. From 1929 to 1932, the total amount of money paid out in wages fell by 60%, according to historian Frederick Lewis Allen. By contrast, from 2007-2009, total American wages fell less than 5%. What we experienced in recent years was nothing close to the Great Depression.
3. A Honda Civic hybrid starts at US$24,200 and gets 44 miles per gallon. A Civic with a normal gas engine starts at US$16,000 and gets 39 MPG. If you drive 15,000 miles a year and gas averages US$4 a gallon, it will take 47 years for the hybrid to justify its cost over the traditional model.
4. At the height of his success, Andrew Carnegie’s annual income was 20,000 times the average American’s wage, according to historian Frederick Lewis Allen. That’s the equivalent of about US$720 million in today’s economy. In 2010, hedge fund manager John Paulson earned US$4.9 billion, or nearly seven times what Carnegie earned in his prime. The key difference: Carnegie made steel to construct buildings. Paulson bought derivatives to bet against them
5. For the 2012-2013 fiscal year, California will spend US$8.7 billion on prisons and US$4.8 billion on its UC and state college systems.
6. The U.S. makes up less than 5% of the world’s population, but a third of the world’s spending on pharmaceuticals, according to the IMS Institute for Healthcare.
7. If you earn minimum wage, you’ll need to work 923 hours to pay for a year at an average public four-year college. In 1980, it took 254 hours.
8. Federal government spending declined year over year in the third quarter of 2011 for the first time since 1955.
9. In 1914, Henry Ford made the unprecedented move of paying line workers US$5 for an eight-hour shift — double the going rate. Adjusted for inflation, that works out to around US$14 an hour in today’s dollars. By contrast, a New York Times article broke down an average auto worker’s 2008 salary, including insurance and paid vacation, and came to US$45 to US$55 an hour.
10. As a percentage of GDP, government spending was higher in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan than it will be this fiscal year (23.5% vs. 23.3%, respectively), according to data by the Tax Policy Centre.
11. More government jobs were eliminated on net in 2010 than in any other year since at least 1939. As a percentage of government workers, the decline was the largest since 1947.
12. The median American family’s net worth fell to US$77,300 in 2010 from US$126,400 in 2007, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance. That erased nearly two decades of accumulated wealth.
13. A study of retired investors between 1999 and 2009 showed those who hired a stockbroker underperformed those managing their own money by 1.5% a year. “Fees accounted for only about half the gap,†writes Jason Zweig of The Wall Street Journal.
14. Only 52% of American families say they were able to save anything in 2010, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance.
15. â€In 2010, 6.0 percent of families reported that their spending usually exceeds their income,†according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance.
16. According to the Boston Consulting Group, manufacturing wages, benefits and taxes are US$22.30 an hour in America, compared with US$2 an hour in China. But since American factory workers are more productive, China’s effective labour costs are only 55% lower than Americans, and may drop to less than a third later this decade.
17. According to The New York Times: “In the last five years, the United States and Canada combined have become the fastest-growing sources of new oil supplies around the world, overtaking producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia.â€
18. According to writer Tim Noah, average stock options granted to CEOs between 1992 and 2000 rose from US$800,000 to US$7 million, and average total compensation quadrupled.
19. According to analyst JW Mason: “In 2007, [nonfinancial corporate] earnings were US$750 billion, dividends were US$480 billion, and netstock repurchases were US$790 billion.†In other words, businesses paid shareholders nearly double what they earned.
20. Oil production at America’s Eagle Ford was 787 barrels in 2004, 308,000 barrels in 2009, and 36.6 million barrels last year.
21. In 1989, the CEOs of the seven largest U.S. banks earned an average of 100 times what a typical household made. By 2007, more than 500 times.
22. In 1990, the three largest U.S. banks held 10% of the industry’s assets. By 2008, the top three controlled 40% of the assets.
23. Clean water and sewers were voted “the greatest medical advance†since 1840 by readers of the British Journal of Medicine.
24. America is home to less than 5% of the world’s population, but nearly a quarter of its prisoners.
25. According Dartmouth political scientist Dean Lacy, states that receive more federal government spending than they contribute in tax revenue tend to support Republican candidates, who typically vow to cut spending.
26. According to economists from the International Monetary Fund and analysis by Bloomberg, implicit government subsidies to large U.S. banks roughly equal their annual profits.
27. After new bank regulations go into effect, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) says 70% of customers with less than US$100,000 in deposits or investments will be unprofitable for the bank.
28. According to John Cawley of Cornell and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University, obese people incur annual medical costs US$2,741 higher than non-obese people, or almost US$200 billion nationwide.
29. In 2007, the Congressional Budget Office estimated federal tax receipts would be US$3.4 trillion in 2012. In reality, they’ll be around US$2.5 trillion. Again, the future is unpredictable. Always.
30. Many talk about how much we import from China, but few discuss how much we sell to them. Exports from the U.S. to China were US$19.2 billion in 2001, and US$104 billion in 2011.
31. As recently as 1975, China wasn’t one of American’s top 10 trading partners. The world changes fast.
32. According to economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, 80% of all income growth from 1980 to 2005 went to the top 1% of wage earners.
33. From 1970 to 2012, median household income increased at one-tenth the rate it did from 1949-1979.
34. If you’re fed up with unemployment caused by offshoring, you’ll love this: According to a 2006 Government Accountability Organisation study, the processing of unemployment insurance claims are partially offshored in several states.
35. We tend to underestimate how powerful the agriculture boom has been in the last century. The 1952 book The Big Change describes life in America in the year 1900: “In most parts of the United States people were virtually without fresh fruit and green vegetables from late autumn to late spring.â€
36. The first American hotel to offer every guest a private bathroom didn’t open until 1907.
37. According to biographer Ron Chernow, John D. Rockefeller’s net worth peaked at US$900 million in 1913. That equaled 2.3% of the U.S. economy. A comparable net worth today would be US$340 billion, or eight times richer than Warren Buffett.
38. Some people don’t see progress coming. In 1906, future President Woodrow Wilson said the automobile offered “a picture of the arrogance of wealth.â€
39. Housing may be turning faster than you think. According to David Wessel, “The fraction of homes that are vacant is at its lowest level since 2006.â€
40. According to Bankrate.com, nearly half of Americans don’t have enough savings to cover three months expenses. Worth noting: The average duration of unemployment is now 10 months.
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