by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:

The wealthy are doing just fine at the moment, but they don’t seem to understand that much of the country is deeply hurting right now.  59 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is currently experiencing a recession, and that is because most of them are personally experiencing economic pain.  Literally just about everything is substantially more expensive in 2024, more major layoffs are being announced with each passing day, and thousands of businesses are going bankrupt.  We haven’t seen a tsunami of economic suffering like this in a long time.

TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

If you live in a wealthy area in a good part of the country, you may wonder what all of the fuss is about.

If you and everyone around you is still doing well, life may still seem quite good.

But the truth is that there are vast stretches of this country that are so depressed that they literally look like something out of a horror movie.

There are many communities that are so plagued by poverty, drugs, homelessness, violence and theft that it seems like there is no possible way that things could ever turn around.

A man named Drew Binksy recently visited one of the poorest parts of West Virginia, and he discovered that most of the people there are living in poverty…

‘Most of [the residents] live below the poverty line and life expectancy is well below the national average.

‘Many families rely on Government assistance just to get by and there’s limited access to healthcare.’

Today, tens of millions of Americans are heavily dependent on the checks that they get from the government each month.

In areas where most people have lost hope of ever finding a better life, drug addiction often runs rampant, and that is precisely what Binksy witnessed…

He also notes that ‘crystal meth and Fentanyl addictions run wild’ in the state, while many people are ‘living so isolated, they have their own dialect.’

The content creator starts his journey in Bluefield and as he wanders through the once prosperous manufacturing city, he says it feels like he has stepped into ‘a forgotten world.’

He continues: ‘Empty streets and closed shops stretch as far as the eye can see. It’s like life just stopped.’

This is where the entire country is heading.

Just a few days ago, I wrote about the “retail apocalypse” that is rapidly spreading across America.

Thousands upon thousands of stores are closing, and most of those abandoned stores will not be filled any time soon.

But at least they will make convenient locations for drug addicts to gather.

According to one woman that Binksy interviewed, 30 percent of the people in her community are into illegal drugs…

One woman in the store tells the camera crew: ‘We’re the poorest county in the United States or we were.

‘About 30 per cent of our community are dopers, druggies… more than 30 per cent!’

The same conditions are being repeated in rural community after rural community all over America.

Sadly, the standard of living in our rural communities is going to continue to go down because the cost of living just keeps going up…

The cost of frozen noncarbonated juices and drinks has risen by 19.2 percent from July 2023 – the most of any grocery item.

Eggs, meanwhile, have increased by 19.1 percent in price, and frankfurters are now 9.7 percent more expensive.

The cost of bacon, beef roasts, pork chops and butter have also risen notably in the last year.

In terms of non-food items, car insurance is the biggest riser in the last year – with an 18.6 percent price hike.

We have already reached a stage where a large portion of the population cannot even afford the basics.

As I shared yesterday, I was absolutely shocked to learn that 39 percent of Americans have been forced to skip meals so that they will have enough money to make their housing payments…

Read More @ TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com