ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the economic and social indicators that affect Americans, both rich and poor. Declining incomes have increased the percentage of Americans suffering from economic insecurity since the middle of the 1980s. Rising health care cost burdens thus have contributed mightily to rising economic insecurity for many American families, as the median household spent about 46 percentage more for medical expenses than its counterpart. The Social Security Advisory Board has argued that the rising cost of health care represents perhaps the most significant threat to the long-term economic security of workers and retirees. For more than three decades the economies of Japan, most of Western Europe and the United States have been declining in terms of every standard macroeconomic indicator GDP, investment, and real wages, among other indicators. The chapter discusses extreme economic inequality with excessive conspicuous consumption by the wealthy class while the average family's standard of living declines.
