In the 1950's, the heydey of American capitalism, manufacturing was the backbone of our economic vitality. These blue-collar jobs paid well, and provided the benefits that raised our quality of life to be the most superior in human history. As you can see from this chart below, those jobs have all been replaced by a service industry specifically designed to profit from obesity and drunkenness. The jobs in bars and restaurants are low-wage and usually provide no worker-benefits of any kind.
When factoring for worker productivity overall, 90% of Americans now make less than the minimum wage standard in 1950. This is at a time when American poverty has reached unprecedented proportions, and more people than ever are relying on government subsidies for the very basic necessities of life. If today's SNAP benefit (foodstamps) was measured as a bread-line like we saw during the Great Depression, there would be a line 7 miles long at every single Wal-Mart in America. Then to add insult to injury, even these low-paying obesity-industry jobs are being eliminated through technology.
This chart plots the collision course explaining why we are so physically sick at the same time our economic vitality has gone stale.
The source of this chart's information is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, but was first seen at: Zero Hedge
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