Ducks in a Row: Alternate Reality
by Miki Saxon
What’s wrong with our so-called leaders?
I finally figured it out.
They live in an alternate reality.
Not all of them, but too many.
And I don’t have to go to Washington (DC) to see them in action.
I can stay home in (southwest) Washington (State)—Clark County, to be exact (nowhere near Seattle.)
We have a county commissioner named David Madore who says he doesn’t know how someone can have a “meaningful” life on $50,000 a year.
First you have to understand Clark County reality.
According to the American FactFinder, a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, data from 2007-2011 indicates the median earning for a single worker in Clark County is $32,337.
Scott Bailey, regional labor economist for the Washington state Employment Security Department, says if you take out all of the seasonal workers from that number, it jumps to about $46,000 or $47,000. The median for men being $51,502 per year, and $40,023 per year for women.
Bailey says more than half the individuals in the county make less than $51,556.
Therefore, substantially more than half of us don’t live meaningful lives.
(New York City, at a median $50,895, is slightly lower, but with a far higher number of peole whose lives aren’t meaningful and those poor folks don’t even have someone to tell them.)
Obviously, Madore lives in an alternate reality.
As do most politicians, corporate chieftains, a good deal of Silicon Valley, Wall Street and others.
Flickr image credit: Jim Champion
