About 40% of Americans Struggle To Meet Basic Needs

Donald Trump (and his Republican cohorts) keep telling us how great the economy is doing. And the mainstream media seems to be accepting that at face value. They are even amazed that the voting populace is favoring Democrats while the economy is doing so "great". In a good economy, the voters normally reward the party in power for that.

Why is the media so willing to believe the economy is doing well. Because they are looking only at three features of the economy -- GDP, the Stock Market, and unemployment. They don't seem to realize that all three of those indicators are faulty. The healthy GDP and the rising Stock Market only tell us how corporations and the rich are doing -- and both are doing exceptionally well. The low unemployment has not caused worker wages to rise and too many of the new jobs being created are low-wage and low-benefit jobs that keep those workers in poverty.

The middle class and the working classes are still struggling to recover from the Bush Recession (even a decade later). Their wages have not kept up with inflation, and they have lost buying power. And the working poor continue to lose ground.

According to a new report by the Urban Institute, a significant portion of Americans are struggling to meet their basic needs (food, housing, utilities, medical care, etc.). About 39.4% of Americans have found it impossible to meet at least one of those needs during the year -- and 23.7% have struggled to meet two or more of those needs.

This is not a good economy (unless you are rich). Anytime nearly four out of ten families struggle to meet at least one basic need, you don't have a good economy. You have an unfair and inequality economy.

But the economy is working just like the Republicans want it to work. Their economic policy (trickle-down economics) is based on giving the rich an unfair advantage. They would have you believe that when the rich do well, then everyone does well. That has never worked, and is not working now. All the Republican Party's policies do is reward the rich and punish everyone else -- creating the largest gap in wealth and income between the rich and the rest of America in our history.

And they have made it clear they have no intention of changing that failed policy. That's why they must be voted out of power. It's the only way to restore an economic policy that is fair to all Americans.