The Way I See It,

this new "normal" is 4 out of 5 people face destitution, but I know what the WSWS is talking about here, and that is income loss. Some 20 percent of people in a study sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation experienced a loss in income of 25 percent or more in the last year.

Hell, the last TWO years I have experienced a huge drop. I was making over $45,000 a year, hardly a princely salary, as a teacher, then went to about $21,000 a year in unemployment compensation, and now I am right down to zero. I am not just running on empty, I am running on fumes. I have found no employment during this time. Of course, our Congress's priorities are on their lengthy vacations rather than helping destitute Americans. These politicians are about to go on yet ANOTHER break for a month or more.

By the way, thanks to participating on a discussion board on unemployment, I was put in contact with a reporter from the New York Times, Mike Luo, who is writing an article about people who have exhausted all of their UI benefits. I interviewed with him for perhaps a half-hour or 45 minutes last night in addition to having corresponded with him by email. He has been interviewing other people and said he will likely concentrate on a person in Vermont whose situation is truly dire. He may mention some other people in similar situations in his article, but even if I don't make "the cut," I still want to get the dead-tree version of the newspaper article.

About Mike Luo:
bio

From the WSWS:

"Putting this trend in terms of population,” the report states, “approximately 46 million Americans were counted as insecure in 2007, up from 28 million in 1985.” The head of the research team that prepared the report, Yale University Professor Jacob Hacker, told an interviewer, “What we’re seeing, basically, is what we’re calling ‘the new normal.’ We’re slowly ratcheting up this level of economic insecurity.”

The research group has devised what it calls the Economic Security Index (ESI), which measures the share of Americans in a given year who experience at least a 25 percent decline in their available household income and who lack a financial safety net to replace the lost income. Such a sudden income drop—usually due to the loss of employment, high medical expenses, or a combination of the two—often leaves people facing destitution.

The report does not include 2010, when long-term joblessness has become endemic. The ESI for this year will doubtless be considerably higher than for 2009.

Of course this is another result of the massive upward transfer of wealth aided and abetted by our elected officials.

The report is here.