The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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Ridgewood NJ, the latest Census data on income levels by ethnicity challenges the prevailing narrative of systemic racism in America. Contrary to the notion that the nation is systematically racist, the data reveals a different reality. The chart indicates that the most affluent group is not whites, but Asians, challenging stereotypes associated with skin color.
Continue reading Census Data Disproves “Systemic Racism” Theory
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the annual US Census Bureau report on income and poverty in America – the gold standard of economic data – was released yesterday and it highlighted how swiftly minorities climbed up the economic ladder under Trump.
Continue reading US Census Report Confirms Amazing Economic Gains By Minorities Under Trump
Financial planning refers to the process and step-by-step approach to meet an individual’s life goals. A financial plan is a crucial aspect and acts as a guide through the journey of life. It is essential and helps you manage your money and achieve your goals by allowing you to control your investments, income, and expenses. Living the way we desire and accomplish the things we want will require a significant degree of financial planning.
Continue reading Financial Planning Done Right: How To Protect Your Future
Deciding whether or not to get life insurance can be tricky. Especially if you don’t know much about what a life insurance policy can mean for you or your family. Luckily we’re here to help and explain why you should think about getting life insurance.
Continue reading 4 Reasons Why You Should Consider Getting Life Insurance
Being in debt can be such a headache and the stress that comes with it can make everyone’s life difficult. It’s safe to say that the majority of people have been caught up in debt in one way or another; whether it’s credit card debt, mortgages, insurance, loans, and so on. However, there are ways in which you can manage your debts that will make your life a lot easier. This is why we’ve made a list explaining what you can do if you ever find yourself in debt.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, for the first time since 1999 the median U.S. household earned $61,372 last year, meaning half of the families in the country brought in more income than this and half earned less. Crossing the $61,000 mark signals the American middle-class may have finally earned more than it did in 1999, although the Census Bureau cautions that median income last year was not statistically different from 1999 or 2007.
Middle-class income rose to the highest recorded levels in 2017 and the national poverty rate declined as the benefits of the strong economy lifted the fortunes of more Americans, the U.S. Census reported Wednesday.
Middle-class household income has been rising steadily in recent years as the economy rebounded from the deep recession . After a period of economic stagnation millions of Americans have found jobs again.
Overall, just over half of American adults were in the middle class in 2016. That’s up slightly from 2011, but down from 61% in 1971. The Census Bureau also reported that the U.S. poverty rate declined modestly to 12.3 percent, the lowest level in years and a sign the economic devastation from the Great Recession is subsiding.
by SAFIA SAMEE ALI
Millenials watch a video calling on the millennial generation to help end the problem of extreme poverty around the globe at the IMF/World Bank Group’s Spring summit on April 10, 2014. Miguel Juarez Lugo / Zuma Press file
By his twenties, Kyle Kaylor imagined he would be living on his own, nearing a college degree, and on his way to a job that fulfilled him.
Instead, at 21, he found himself out of school, living with his parents, and “stuck” working as a manager at a fast food restaurant scraping to make hand-to-mouth.
Launching into adulthood has been tricky, he said.
“It became too difficult financially to be in school and not working,” says Kaylor, who dropped out of Lincoln Christian University, in Illinois, after one semester because of a money crunch. “And without schooling, you can’t get a job that you can survive on, so I had to move back home,” he said.
Ridgewood NJ, New Jersey ranked dead last in the nation in economic growth last year. The latest Census data shows that while the household median income in 2015 went up by 5.2 percent nationally, the household median income in New Jersey remained flat to stagnant.
The ugly reality is that New Jersey’s median income hasn’t increased or decreased in a statistically significant way since 2011. Before then, it had been in freefall since 2008 thanks to the recession.
In Bergen County Medium Household Income dropped from $89,452 in the 2005-2009 period to $85,806 or down -4.1% in the 2011-2015 period. That still beats the state average of a drop of 5% during the same period statewide and at the Federal level a decline of -4.7% .
While many young people are leaving the state for better job opportunities and lower cost of living environments the state still has the highest percentage of millennials living with their parents.
file photo by Boyd Loving
A poll released Monday shows New Jersey following national trends in residents’ gloomy assessment of their income and the larger economy. The study from Stockton University’s polling institute found that a majority of New Jersey residents feel their income has failed to keep up with increases in the cost of living. 55 percent of respondents described their income as “falling behind the cost of living,” while 37 percent said it was “just keeping pace.” JT Aregood, PolitickerNJ Read more
BY TATIANA DARIE
BLOOMBERG NEWS |
WIRE SERVICE
It’s a job market revolution: an estimated 10.3 million Americans earned income through Web-based platforms like Uber and Airbnb between 2012 and 2015. That’s more people than reside in the entire state of Georgia and amounts to 6.5 percent of the total U.S. workforce.
So-called gig jobs, in which a person performs a task for another individual often through Web-based platforms, are often easier to land, and help generate additional income when regular earnings aren’t sufficient, according to a new study by the JPMorgan Chase Institute.
Participants in this economy are typically younger, with the 25 to 34 age group accounting for the largest part of the gig workforce. They are more likely to be male, live in the West and have an average median income of about $2,800 per month, according to the study.
The number of people earning income in the online economy over the three-year period of JPMorgan’s study increased 47-fold. Labor platforms, including ride-hailing service Uber, that connect customers with freelancers have grown more rapidly than capital platforms like Airbnb, which rent homes and assets or sell goods. Demand is also driving the growth as online service use becomes more common.
Now, “most people would know they can get their groceries picked up, they can get a ride from three or four different companies — things that only a year ago, only earlier adopters learned,” Diana Farrell, the institute’s founding president and chief executive officer, said in an interview. “It’s becoming more mainstream.”
https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/10-3-million-americans-worked-gig-jobs-1.1515503
Washington (AFP) – Most Americans’ incomes continued to fall last year, but the richest 20 percent saw theirs rise, a new Labor Department report showed Thursday.
In fresh data that adds fire to a growing debate over income inequality, the department said that Americans on average saw income decline for the second straight year in the 12 months to June 2014.
The average pre-tax income fell 0.9 percent from the same period a year earlier, to $64,432.
But broken down into quintiles, those in the top 20 percent of incomes saw their money stream grow by 0.9 percent to $166,048 on average.
Every other group lost ground, with the bottom 20 percent losing the most: their average income dropped 3.5 percent to $9,818.
