Nearly 40 percent of all workers in the country made less than $20,000 last year, according to data from the Social Security Administration, which doesn’t include figures on benefits such as health insurance or pensions. That’s below the federal poverty threshold for a family of four and close to the line for a family of three. On average, these workers earned just $17,459.55.

Michael Hudson: Oh, the same shrinkage that you’ve seen since 2008. We’re still in the backwash; the economy is still unable to pay its debts. The difference in trend is that now you have hedge funds coming in to the real estate market here buying a lot of properties from the banks at great discount prices for all cash.

So, for the last 30 years you’ve had a declining proportion of equity ownership of US real estate. All of a sudden that’s turned around and gone up because you have hedge funds buying for 100% cash. Now that you have Treasury Securities yielding only 1/10th of a percent, the financial sector says “How are you we going to make a higher rate?” The highest rate they can make is in mortgages, so they’re buying the discounted properties and they’re renting them. One of the consequences is that rents are going sharply up for the United States so that not only can people not afford to buy houses now, they can’t get mortgage credit, but they can’t even afford to pay their rent. So the squeeze is on. Only about 25% of workers’ pay cheques here can be spent on goods and services, all the rest is spent on rent and social security, medical care, interest payments and taxes.