I still disapprove of this economy

[mellowtigger]

I was at Taco Bell this week when an old, short, skinny, white woman took my order. Afterwards, she spoke to an elderly couple after me, and she told them, "I just had pneumonia... again. With my diabetes."

I wish the media could make better progress in dispelling the myth of America's minimum-wage workers as teenagers slumming until they get a "real" job. These service jobs are what's available. They are real, but they do not pay well. I pondered this elderly woman, and I felt some sort of slow-burning anger that "Amurrika!" keeps sinking lower.

You already know how I feel about it. I argued two years ago about how bad things are for everyday Americans and how fixing income inequality (either raising minimum wage or taxing high incomes) has already been shown to improve outcomes for everyone across the spectrum.

We can't fix this problem, though, because our society still operates as if it believes trickle-down economics is a real effect. It isn't. Any child who's played the game Monopoly would know better. What happens when you play the game properly and all the money gathers on one side of the board? The game ends; that's what happens. The only way to continue playing is to redistribute that money in a perpetual pattern of excess and poverty.  When an economy functions in a way that money flows only one direction and never back around again, then only one outcome is possible.

But this is real life, not a game. Income inequality has consequences only hinted at by Monopoly. Most Americans (80% for crying out loud!) live on the edge of economic disaster. I was there last year: broke, without easy access to health care, without a vehicle, yet still employed. I'm doing much better now only because of a new job.

Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream. Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend. -  CBS News

It's even worse in the GLBT community, consistent with my unofficial observations at the few public events I still attend.  Too many people are too poor to "go out", it seems.

“As poverty rates for nearly all population increased during the recession, lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans remained more likely to be poor than heterosexual people. Gender, race, education and geography all influence poverty rates among LGBT population, and children of same-sex couples are particularly vulnerable to poverty,” according to a June 2013 report from the Williams Institute, a UCLA think tank on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy. - Washington Blade

Something has to change.  It really, really has to change.  I'm doing better financially now at this single moment than... well, possibly any time of my life.  My uncommon good fortune hasn't done anything to improve my impression of the U.S. economy's disarray.  We can go find Taco Bell Lady to have a nice chat, if you're still doubting the existence of this new America.