Many americans Feel the Depression

Gallup reports that 29% of americans believe that the economy is in a Depression while another 27% believe that the economy is growing. I guess it all depends on whether you were harmed by the 2008 crash or not. Most executives and government workers didn't suffer at all from the economic crash. Their income stayed flat or even rose while many others fell out of the middle class and some went broke. Since executives don't hang out with the working class, how would they know what common people have suffered?

Meanwhile inflation jumped sharply, the economy slowed down and unemployment increased in the first quarter for those of us in the lower classes. The government claims that inflation rose 3.8% this quarter even though most of us know it rose much higher. Walmart even claims that it's customers are "running out of money"! Growth has collapsed to 1.8% for the year and probably means the Depression will deepen for most of common folks.

The dollar index dropped to 72.87 cents, the lowest since 2008. This means more pain is on the way in the form of higher gasoline and consumer products made in foreign lands. The wealth effect that all of those cheap imports was supposed to provide are gone.

McDonalds hired 62,000 workers during it's "Day of Hiring" on April 19. One million people applied for the mostly minimum wage jobs so 938,000 walked away jobless. Remember when McDonalds was always hiring. No more! Now anyone will take any job, no matter how shitty.

The common folks that are out of work, working for less or haven't had a raise in a few years are being gutted by higher prices unlike the wealthy 30 percent of executives, government employees and union workers. As the dollar erodes in value and import prices rise, they're going to feel their standard of living decline. They will feel the Depression.