Based Underground is now a conservative news aggregator AND curated newsletter.
According to a stunning new survey that was just released, an annual income of at least $186,000 a year is required in order to feel financially secure in the United States today. Unfortunately, only 6 percent of U.S. adults make that kind of money. So we have a major problem on our hands.
The cost of living has become extremely painful, and millions of Americans are stressed out of their minds because their finances are such a mess. Over the past several years we have witnessed an economic shift of epic proportions. The ultra-wealthy have gotten a lot wealthier, the ranks of the poor have exploded, and the middle class has been absolutely eviscerated. In this current economic environment, only a very small segment of the population is living comfortably.
The following comes from CBS News…
Americans have a specific annual income in mind for what it would take to feel financially secure, according to a new survey from Bankrate. The magic number? $186,000 per year.
Currently, only 6% of U.S. adults make that amount or more, Bankrate said. The median family income falls between $51,500 and $86,000, according to the latest federal data. Achieving financial security means being able to pay your bills while having enough left over to make some discretionary purchases and put money away for the future, the personal finance site said.
When I was growing up, I thought that anyone that earned more than $100,000 a year was wealthy.
But now it takes an income about five times that size in order to be considered “wealthy”…
Americans have an even higher yardstick for feeling rich. The survey found they believe they would need to earn $520,000 a year to qualify as wealthy — up from their $483,000 response during the same survey last year.
Much of the population is trying as hard as they can, but they will never make the kind of money that they would like to make.
Coffee the Christian way: Promised Grounds
Meanwhile, the cost of living just keeps going higher and higher and higher.
As a result, the percentage of Americans that admit that they are experiencing financial stress just continues to go up…
Many inflation-weary consumers continue to experience financial stress, with a new Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia survey finding that 35% of Americans are worried about making ends meet, up from 29% a year earlier.
That gap between what the typical American earns and what they aspire to earn means “Americans have their eyes set on this high income, and they think they need to make more money even if they know it’s unrealistic they’ll never make that amount,” Sarah Foster, an analyst at Bankrate, told CBS MoneyWatch.
At this point, even many that are considered to be in “upper-income groups” feel forced to take on extra jobs just to make ends meet…
Americans in upper-income groups are concerned about their ability to pay bills, with more than 15 percent of this demographic taking up additional jobs over the past year, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
As of April 2024, 32.5 percent of respondents earning over $150,000 annually were worried about making ends meet over the next six months, up from 21.7 percent in April of last year, the June survey showed.
This percentage is higher than for those in the income groups of $100,000 to $149,999, $70,000 to $99,999, and $40,000 to $69,999. Only individuals who earned less than $40,000, the lowest income group, were more worried than the $150,000-plus group.
I have never seen numbers like this before.
People are feeling so much anxiety about their finances, and that helps to explain why economic issues are playing such a prominent role in this election cycle.
Some Americans are trying to make ends meet by cutting back anywhere that they can.
For example, the following comes from an NPR article about how Americans are cutting back on charitable giving…
Robert Lang, a longtime cabinetmaker in Cincinnati, used to feel good about giving money to less-fortunate people. These days, however, he’s being forced to be less generous.
“I’m no great humanitarian,” says Lang. “But I feel really good if I can give a homeless guy 20 bucks. And we can’t do that anymore.”
The reason? Rising prices, which have forced Lang to dial back his giving as the 69-year-old tries to make ends meet with Social Security benefits and a part-time job with a furniture-making journal.
When times get tough, people become less generous.
I wish that wasn’t true, but that is just the way that it is.
So what will happen when economic conditions become extremely harsh?
BCA Research chief global strategist Peter Berezin is warning that another recession is coming and that stock prices could soon fall by 30 percent…
There may be trouble looming on the horizon for the U.S. stock market, according to BCA Research.
In a note to clients last week, BCA Research chief global strategist Peter Berezin warned that, contrary to popular belief, the economy will fall into a recession either this year or in early 2025.
Should that happen, the S&P 500 could tumble to 3,750, which marks a 30% drop from current levels.
Will he be proven correct?
- Preserve your retirement with physical precious metals. Receive your free gold guide from Genesis Precious Metals to learn how.
I don’t know.
But I do know that it feels like a recession has already arrived to many Americans.
Every day, we get even more bad economic news. For instance, Fox Business just published an article about how major drug store chains are in the process of closing down locations from coast to coast…
Just this week, Walgreens announced that it would close a “significant” number of under performing stores across the U.S. due to ongoing challenges with profitability and declining margins.
Earlier this month, Rite Aid announced that 27 locations in Michigan and Ohio have been added to the growing number of stores it plans to close while it restructures under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
In large cities all over the nation, thousands upon thousands of commercial properties are now sitting empty.
Of course this is just the start.
As the globe is rocked by one chaotic crisis after another, things will get a whole lot worse.
A “perfect storm” is now upon us, and most people have absolutely no idea how harsh conditions around us will soon become.
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Angel Reese Slammed After Bragging About COVID Vaccinations – ‘Waiting for the Next One to Come Out’
by Western Journal
When young people say dumb things, those who know better tend to err on the side of grace. After all, let them make their mistakes. On the other hand, when those young people emerge as athletic stars and then build a platform from which to spew nonsense in a way…
Sylvester Stallone Survived an Abortion: “I Was Brought Into the World by Accident”
by Life Site News
Sylvester Stallone, known for his roles in Creed and Rocky, opened up about surviving an abortion attempt. His daughters, Sophia and Sistine Stallone, host the Unwaxed Podcast. They interviewed their father about his new Netflix documentary, “Sly.” During the episode, they discussed Stallone’s childhood, something that is addressed in the…
‘What the F***’: Joe Rogan Destroys NYT Headline Warning About Dangers of Constitution
by Daily Wire
Podcaster Joe Rogan absolutely destroyed a recent New York Times headline that warned about the dangers of the U.S. Constitution, suggesting that there’s no amount of “gaslighting” the news organization could do to make him see their side. During “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Rogan and his guest evolutionary biologist,…
What Do They Know? Russia Increases Daily Gold Purchases by 700%
by Sponsored Post
In a significant move, Russia’s Finance Ministry has announced plans to allocate 8.2 billion rubles ($92 million) each day for gold and foreign currency purchases until October 4, the nation’s Finance Minister announced. “The amount of funds allocated for purchases of foreign currency and gold totals 172.9 billion rubles,” the…
CNN Data Guru Says Trump Will Win if He “Outperforms His Current Polls by Just a Single Point”
by Jason Cohen, Daily Caller News Foundation
(DCNF)—CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said on Friday that former President Donald Trump will win the November election if he can slightly surpass his current poll projections. Vice President Kamala Harris is leading Trump by just 0.2% in the top seven battleground states, according to the RealClearPolling average. Enten,…
New Jobs Report Shows Millions of Americans Lost Jobs to ‘Foreign-Born’ Workers, F/T Work Yields to P/T
by Red State
Trying to nail down Joe Biden or Kamala Harris on the number of jobs they’ve “created” — the government does not create jobs; it can create economic conditions that can lead to job creation or job losses — during the last disastrous three-and-a-half years is like trying to nail Jell-O…
Putin Avoids ‘Kursk Trap’ as His Troops Poised to Take Pokrovsk
by SHTF Plan
President Putin has continued to downplay Ukraine’s major Kursk invasion, which has resulted in Russian territory occupied by Kiev forces, and has instead maintained that capturing and holding all the Donbas in eastern Ukraine remains the goal. “We have to deal with these thugs who made it into Russia,” he…
Leaked Army Advisory Warns of Migrant Gang Violence in Major Cities
by The National Pulse
A threat advisory issued by the U.S. Army to Department of Defense (DOD) personnel across the country warns the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) has established a significant foothold in multiple American cities and poses a serious danger to local, state, and federal law enforcement. The document—designated as Controlled…
Are You Ready for the Big Steal … Again?
by Richard Blakley, WND
(WND)—The 2020 election was a mess. Only the gullible and self-deceived believe Joe Biden legally obtained more votes than any presidential candidate in U.S. history. If this were true, Democrats would have beaten their drums concerning this “historic” vote, like the pig in the old Valleydale Sausage commercials, but even…
YouTube Uses DOJ Allegations to Justify Axing Tenet Media’s Channel Without Due Process
by The Federalist
The widely used video platform YouTube removed Tenet Media and related channels from its services on Thursday after the Justice Department accused the company of partaking in a secret Russian influence operation. The revelation comes days after the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the seizure of nearly three dozen…
Has Anyone Noticed That We Know More About Yesterday’s School Shooter Than Crooks?
by Hot Air
The mainstream media has already done a deep dive into the bizarre details of the perpetrator of yesterday’s school shooting, and we have gotten more media availabilities from law enforcement on the events than we have yet gotten from July 13th’s attack on Donald Trump and the three other victims…
Strong Dad Engagement Programs Are Funding the Fight for Fatherhood to Save the Fatherless
by Caldron Pool
“The men the world is raising are not the men the world needs.” No man is born an expert on fatherhood. Good fathers are taught through blunt advice, wise counsel, observation, experience, and their environment. This is why responsible fatherhood programs are saving lives, and why we should be talking…
Ex-CNN Analyst Says Commiela Harris “Has More Riding On” the Debate Than Trump, She’ll Be “More Nervous”
by Jason Cohen, Daily Caller News Foundation
(DCNF)—Former CNN political analyst Chris Cilizza said Friday he believes that the upcoming presidential debate holds more significance for Vice President Kamala Harris than it does for former President Donald Trump. Trump and Harris are slated to compete in their only scheduled presidential debate on ABC News on Tuesday. Cillizza…