Four Charts...

...that highlight a decidedly different perspective about where things stand in today's America than the ones Wall Street is so fixated on:

Those who are seen as our nation's future are having the hardest time finding jobs

"Starting Off on the Wrong Foot: Early Careers and High Unemployment" (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)

Younger workers typically face a higher rate of unemployment than their more mature counterparts. For example, in 2007, prior to the last recession, the unemployment rate for workers aged 30 to 54 was about 3.7 percent, while for workers aged 20 to 29 it was 6.5 percent. Since the recession, the situation has gotten worse. The unemployment rate for these younger workers has increased substantially, averaging about 13 percent. This 6.5 point increase was more than one-third larger than the increase for workers aged 30 to 54, whose unemployment rate has averaged about 8.5 percent over the same period.The current challenges to finding employment raise serious questions about the prospects for young workers’ life-time earnings and career outcomes. Traditionally, the early part of one’s career is characterized by a period of rapid wage growth. On average, two-thirds of the wage growth experienced over people’s lifetimes occurs within the first 10 years of their careers. This large increase in wages is often attributed to new workers acquiring new skills as they gain labor market experience.

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A growing number of families don't make enough money to buy the food they need

"iFoodstamps" (Zero Hedge)

Think Apple is the only thing allowed to hit new records every month? Think again: presenting iFoodstamps - the number of Americans living in poverty (or at least doing a damn good job of fooling the government in pretending they do). As of December, per SNAP this number just hit another record high of 46.5 million, an increase of 384,000 in one month (and ending the trend of declines from October and November), 2.4 million in 2011 (about as many as have dropped out of the Labor force, hmmmm), and 14.3 million since Obama took office.

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Prospective home buyers are finding it harder and harder to get a mortgage

"CHART OF THE DAY: This Is The Trend That Could Asphyxiate The Housing Recovery" (Business Insider)

There have been hints and starts of a housing recovery, but each time it looks like things are getting cranking again, it seems the football gets removed.

This week, Goldman Sachs pushed back its estimate of when housing would hit its bottom to 2013.

One problem? It's still really hard to get a mortgage.

This chart from Nomura shows the percentage of real estate pros who are experiencing sales cancellations. As 2011 went on, the number of people having an issue with cancellations due to mortgage obtainment started rising!

From Nomura:

In his testimony before Congress this week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke continued to show his concern that clogged housing finance remains a sizable drag on the economy. Indeed, despite lower mortgage rates, the share of real estate practitioners who experienced cancellation due to inability to obtain mortgage loans in January rose to 8.0% from the recent low of 1.0%. In Figure 1, the category “cancellation due to other problems” comprises many issues, probably also including cancellation because of mortgage problems. Many potential home buyers can’t take advantage of favorable borrowing conditions due to difficulty in getting mortgage loans.

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More than one-half of elder households in the U.S., have incomes that do not cover basic expenses

"Doing Without: Economic Insecurity and Older Americans" (Wider Opportunities for Women)

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Findings released today reveal that older Americans in all 50 states and the District of Columbia are struggling to cover their most basic expenses. Based on the Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index (Elder Index), a comprehensive analysis of data that defines the costs associated with the most basic expenses facing adults over 65, Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) has taken a new look at where seniors may be most economically insecure. To avoid deepening the financial crisis facing a growing numbers of seniors, these findings reinforce the need to maintain a national commitment to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other gap-filling policies and programs, such as nutrition and energy assistance. This is the first in a series of reports, "Doing Without: Economic Insecurity and Older Americans," that WOW will be releasing this spring.

"Growing old in America is getting more and more expensive. Even though we may not be able to avoid getting older, we can’t afford it either,” said Donna Addkison, President and CEO of WOW. “Working hard is no guarantee you’ll be able to cover your most basic expenses when you retire."

Comments

[Tom]

Thanks for yet another spot-on blog post that tells it like it is.

The Puritan standard is gone due to GREED. There is no guarantee of anything anymore, working hard or not. Environmentally we're so screwed that we don't even see the collapse happening around us! Financially, the world is a basket-case waiting to be pronounced DEAD. Globally, we're overpopulated, running out of basic resources and cheap energy (and the energy we ARE using is toxic to the planet), and the situation is rife for conflict and war - the idiotic fall-back position of humanity when things look dire. It's like we never fully realized our evolutionary fate (what ever happened to cooperation and community?) and keep making the same mistakes generation after generation.

Humanity has become a hopeless case, dragging down many other species with it to oblivion.

[Frederick]

The entire Food Stamp situation is wildly misleading. Food Stamps are being aggressively marketed to people by the current administration, very, very, very aggressively. They are being marketed to college kids, multiple people in the same houses who should be ineligible, and to the same people multiple times over via multiple identities. US Government workers are being paid bonuses to sign people up for SNAP. Yes, the Food Stamps Program is paying out these gargantuan, all time record high, and growing benefits; but, it NOT the economic stress indicator it once was and still should be. What is it? Nothing but an indicator of enormous CRIME and FRAUD within a government program.

[Under their thumb]

oh fred...i guess people can't charge it anymore...?

Hitting the credit card wall – Credit card debt contracts 17 percent as the grand American household deleveraging continues. Average household with credit card debt carries $16,000 at an average rate of 15% – Real broke housewives. Orange County California witnesses a 600 percent jump in bankruptcies.

There are more credit cards out in the economy than households since the average number of credit cards per household is over 3. These are devices that essentially allow people to spend money they don’t have on potential future earnings. It would be one thing if people paid off their credit cards each month and didn’t pay 15 percent interest on funds they borrowed. Yet the $800 billion in outstanding credit card debt tells you that this is not the case. Banks are immensely profitable here since they can borrow from the Federal Reserve at virtually zero percent, they will pay you virtually zero percent on your savings deposits, but then they will charge you 15 percent on money loaned out to you. Now that is a racket we should all be fortunate to be a part of.

http://www.mybudget360.com/credit-cards-number-united-states-credit-debt-falls-17-percent-orange-county-bankruptcies/#more-3789

[energyecon]

Another perspective on that UE data and who is rally having the most difficult time finding a job is duration of UE by age cohort. What you see then is that the higher UE rater for the younger cohorts has a materially shorter UE duration associated with it, while the older cohorts who would otherwise be closer or at peak earnings have a materially longer UE duration and are taking a larger economic hit.

[sharonsj]

Frederick, where do your weird ideas come from? I doubt any government worker is paid a bonus for doing their job (signing up people who need food stamps). Can you prove people are using multiple identities? Where are the ads for that aggressive marketing (I never saw any). I guess that right-wing kool-aid has frozen your brain.

Go to globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com for a complete list of EU unemployment figures and information. And don't forget those countries are lying too and their numbers are even worse than admitted.

[Ken]

I disagree with this. I think many people have their priorities messed up on spending money. Many of these people who say they can’t make it have cable, the latest cell phones and all sorts of hi-tech gadgets !
The wife and I always get a kick out of the shows on TV featuring these “so called” poor people with the nice cars, flat screen TV’s and other comforts of life.

Its not true that you can’t do well IF YOU WANT TO ! I have a minimal college education but at 48 have more than enough to retire now if I wish. Its all about priorities… Setting goals and making sure that you take care of yourself an not rely on others for your success.

[roger]

There is no security in a chaotic world.
For those who have made it (I.m financially OK)
and display smugness and think only on the
personal side, my experience in life,I'm 87,,
is that in an insecure,antagonistic world,we
are all at the mercy of events,I have seen
many many individuals lives ruined by society's folly's
thru no fault of their own.

[Doable Finance]

And you know what? The group between the age of 20 and 34 are the ones the retired can look up to, to shoulder problems. But they have the highest unemployment according to your chart.

[Terry Pratt]

Frederick - Why should multiple people in the same houses be ineligible?

I rent a room in a house in which four other unrelated adults also live. We split rent and utilities evenly and otherwise live independently and do not share food.

Why should my income affect food stamp eligibility of anyone else in the house, or why should their income affect my eligibility?

[Terry Pratt]

Ken - the Elder Index where I live for a single renter is $20K. That is not exactly a lot of income, and especially not a lot of income for a renter, who necessarily must always pay current (and usually rising) rents. (In my metro, current year-over-year rents are up 8 to 10 percent, depending on whom you ask.

Those of us who are lifetime renters - who were never able to buy a home - paid more to rent than many homeowners paid, with nothing to show for it, and also with lower incomes in old age due to our lower earnings during our working years.

The chart posted gives median income for all fully retired seniors, and renters surely have a lower median income than homeowners. I suspect the median income of older renters is closer to $12K than it is to $15K.