09.29.10
Stumble & Fail — the EP
Did he watch it on his gadget?
1. Bedbugs
2. Census Man Stomp
3. Mean Old Future
4. Tom Friedman Blooz
Now, if you want, an EP teaser for US of Fail, a little brother — Stumble & Fail.
Download, burn to CD, print the cover art, larger version here.
Reading material for whilst listening
As the recession shook Americans’ confidence last year, new figures show that weddings for people 18 and older dropped to the lowest point in over a hundred years.
A broad array of new Census Bureau data released Tuesday documents the far-reaching impact of a business slump that experts say technically ended in June 2009: a surging demand for food stamps, considerably fewer homeowners and people doubling up in housing to save money.
The government revealed that the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year by the largest margin ever, stark evidence of the impact the long recession starting in 2007 has had in upending lives and putting the young at greater risk.
The top-earning 20 percent of Americans — those making more than $100,000 each year — received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by the bottom 20 percent of wage-earners who fell below the poverty line, according to the newly released Census figures.
A different measure, the international Gini index, found U.S. income inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.
Three states — New York, Connecticut and Texas — and the District of Columbia had the largest gaps in rich and poor, disparities that exceeded the national average. Similar income gaps were evident in large cities such as New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta, home to both highly paid financial and high-tech jobs as well as clusters of poorer immigrant and minority residents. — AP