Recession Forever? 10 Reasons American Workers Are Screwed

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Higher education in the US is becoming an unaffordable luxury. By conservative estimates, the cost of a college education is now 50% higher than it was 30 years ago. Public colleges and universities are cheaper, but not cheap enough. As states cut funding, the cost of attending a four-year public institution has risen by 5.2% each year of the last decade. Student loan debt in this country now exceeds $1tr.

Upon graduation, debt-saddled young people face a fierce job market; youth unemployment has hovered around 16% for the last year and a half. The conundrum is that, although college degrees are exorbitantly expensive, they're increasingly necessary to even get in the door for a decent job.

Problem 10: inequality is getting worse

It's well-known that the US ranks near the top of most unequal countries in the developed world – and that income inequality here has reached its highest levels since the great depression. A few statistics fill out the bleak picture: the top 1% of earners took 93% (pdf) of the income gains in the first full year of the recovery. The poorest 50% of Americans now collectively own just 2.5% of the nation's wealth.

What level of inequality is healthy for a society may be debatable, but an increasing number of economists and regulators – including those at the IMF and Federal Reserve – are recognizing that US-style inequality is bad for business, and the economy as a whole.

As these experts are starting to realize, the recovery will only come when workers get their due. Until then, American corporations are sowing the seeds of their own destruction – and taking the rest of us down with them.