First came the news that 40 percent of workers are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a new CareerBuilder survey.
Then the Pew Research Center released a deluge of economic data -- The Lost Decade of the Middle Class – demonstrating that the middle class is shrinking. Today, 85 percent of middle-class Americans says it is more difficult now than 10 years ago to maintain their standard of living. Families are feeling pinched, and “for the first time since the end of World War II, mean family incomes declined for Americans in all income tiers,” says the report.
A New Jersey city often described as the most dangerous in the country will no longer have its own police force, as a crunched state budget has intensified an effort to reduce costs by busting the local police union.
The outlook is grim for American workers.