Recession Finally Over, Just Not For You

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Good news! The recession is over:

Unemployment remains at near-record levels, and most Americans are struggling to rebuild their battered finances. But the country’s wealthy are once again doing just fine, thank you.

….Last year the number of millionaires bounced up sharply, new data show. And after that decline and rebound, the millionaire class held a larger percentage of the country’s wealth than it did in 2007.

….The [Boston Consulting Group’s] latest report on wealth, one of the first broad depictions of how wealth shifted in 2009, indicates that the number of U.S. households with at least $1 million in “bankable” assets climbed 15% last year to 4.7 million after tumbling 21% in 2008.

Well, you know what I mean: the recession is over for everyone who counts. As for the rest of you, it’s time to suck it up. We need austerity, people, not out-of-control spending. So stop whining, OK?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

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