This report from Dr. Martin Weiss of SafeMoney Report:
FACT #1: More than 2.6 million families lost a paycheck in 2008. That brought the total number of unemployed workers to over 11 million — fully 74% as many as were unemployed in The Great Depression.
FACT #2: This great lost paycheck pandemic is still accelerating. One year ago — in January 2008 — an average of 1,000 U.S. workers lost their paychecks every workday. By December, 28,727 paychecks vanished per workday — nearly 29 times more.
FACT #3: Obama warns more jobs may be lost than in The Great Depression. This crisis is still in its early stages. President Obama himself has warned that the unemployment rate will explode to at least 10% in 2009.
If he’s right, more than 15 million workers will be without a job — more, even than during the depths of The Great Depression.
And even these sobering facts don’t begin to fully describe the financial pain about to be felt by millions of American families ...
Wage freezes and outright salary reductionsare ALREADY spreading like wildfire!
In his inauguration speech, President Obama tacitly called on private sector workers to voluntarily reduce their own incomes ...
"It is ... the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours."
And yesterday, to lead by example, he announced a salary freeze for White House employees earning over $100,000 a year — including his Chief of Staff, his National Security Advisor and his Press Secretary.
But many companies are not waiting around for the President’s lead ...
Tropicana Casino and Resort of Atlantic City is freezing all wages …
Avis Budget Group is freezing management salaries on top of cutting more than 2,200 jobs.
The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio imposed a hiring and salary freeze across the board on its 33,000-worker health system in December.
Alcoa’s new salary and hiring freeze impacts all employees who are left after slashing 13,500 workers.
And many more companies are actually cutting employees’ income and benefits ...
USA Today publisher Gannett has frozen wages and imposed one-week unpaid furloughs for most of its U.S. employees.
Luxury retailer Saks is not only terminating 1,100 jobs, it’s also eliminating merit raises and suspending matching contributions to its 401(k) plan.
Caterpillar is cutting executive compensation by up to HALF and cancelling pay increases for managers and support staff.