The Bottom 40%

This is from a Jon Taplin post at Talking Point Memo Cafe:

So here is the reality of life for the bottom 40% of America's families. After they pay for food, housing and transportation they have $1200 per year to spend on "discretionary items" like clothing, medicine and doctors. Never mind telephone, Internet or cable TV which are supposed to be middle class entitlements.

He is writing about families with an income of $22,000 before taxes. This is $10.57 an hour. Many jobs pay less than this a...