America Please RE-gain!

In the last few years  the American dream has become a nightmare. Yes democracy, virtue, and truth are no longer a dream boat rather a shipwreck.

 Climate change, mass inequality, civil difference and a whole mentality of selfish entitlement has insanely transformed our culture,

What saddens me the most is the waste and miss management of all facets of American life-where fiction trumps facts.  Disunity Is prevalent and a selfish disregard for respectful civility is the norm

We spent over $5 trillion on Covid relief and that doesn’t include the $4 trillion we’re spending on our healthcare and those numbers are just the beginning of long-term the Covid costs.

Bottom line no where can you see conservative or any regard for more frugal fiscal action or preventative measures that is bankrupting future generations

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Our addiction to consuming is impoverishing us. Also corporate welfare is crippling people of all walks since the taxpayers pick up that bill

Unless we invest in less wasteful  measures both economic and social depression is inevitable. Below are the facts why we have to become more sustainable and invest in livability. Only the truth sets us free since the lies just bury us further. 

Recently, USAFacts (May 2022)  has included recent available decades of data.

The costs of many government programs are growing faster than enrollment.

The number of people enrolled in many government programs rose over the decade — but increasing program costs outpaced enrollee growth. For example, partly driven by the expansions allowed by 2010’s Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (or CHIP) enrollment grew 48% between 2009 and 2019. Yet, Medicaid and CHIP payments rose 90%, up by $298 billion.

A bit of a counter example, the cost of veterans’ pension and disability benefits rose 18% or $16 billion and medical expenditures went up 9% or $6 billion, despite the nation’s veteran population declining by 3%. The same goes for Social Security: enrollment rose 22%. This includes 11.2 million more Americans receiving retirement benefits and 400,000 more on disability insurance. Social Security costs were up $332 billion, or 59%.

It is important to note these rising program costs. Government debt per person doubled in the decade before the pandemic and coronavirus response spending has pushed it even higher.

The nation experienced a long period of economic expansion post-Great Recession. Median wages increased between 2009 and 2019, outpacing inflation by 1%. Jobs started to pay more, with the number of workers paid at or below minimum wage decreasing 55% over the decade. Total employment (the number of people working for themselves or as a paid employee) increased faster than the working age population: the working age population grew 3% and total employment grew 10%. Senior employment also grew, up 69% from 6.11 million to 10.34 million. The nation’s senior population grew by 36% (14.4 million people) over the same period.

Some Americans left the workforce during the pandemic and have not returned — as of March 2022, there are 174,000 fewer people in the labor force than immediately prior to the pandemic. And inflation is eating into workers’ gains: consumer prices rose 8.5% in March 2022 compared to a year prior, the highest level in 40 years.

Children escaped poverty — but more fell into homelessness. Of all the Americans experiencing poverty in 2019, a third of them were kids. There were 10.45 million children in poverty that year, down from 15.45 million in 2009, but the impact was uneven. Over the decade, the poverty rate ranged from 8% to 12% for non-Hispanic white children and from 21% to 33% for Hispanic children. The percentage of non-Hispanic Black children in poverty ranged from 26% to 37%, the highest rates of any group.

As in last year’s report, the number of children experiencing homelessness grew even as child poverty dropped. At least 1.39 million children were homeless in 2019, up from 915,000 in 2009.

The federal government increased the Child Tax Credit in the 2021 American Rescue Plan. Last July, the number of children in families that received the first monthly payment totaled 60 million. These disbursements had a maximum of $250 to $300 per child, depending on their age. These increased payments stopped in December 2021. The government metrics that might provide insights into the impact these payments had on child poverty and homelessness aren’t timely. Americans need clear data about the results of the payments to understand how to move forward. While the nation made progress from 2009 to 2019, we have further to go, all of which is complicated by lingering instability from the pandemic