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The increase in inequality in income is a longtime trend, but the pressure on middle- and low-income workers is going up rapidly. Especially if they live in an area where there are high housing and gas prices, like California.

My own experience in the third world was that even if people started to make more money, the cost of living and housing increased often faster than the wages.

If you look at the US economy over the last 15-20 years wages have been stagnating or even declining.

In addition to joblessness, of course, by the working of supply and demand, when you have a larger number of people unemployed, wages do not rise at the normal level, so that we had last year a drop in real wages.

If the economy grows, housing gets better, quicker.

It takes so long for the folks who are earning minimum wage to finally see a little bit of a rise... that it takes a little nudge, I think, from government.

The cost of living is going up and the chance of living is going down.

We've got to make greedy banks pass on interest rate cuts in full, and we've got to see rents coming down.

Poverty is on the increase - due to welfare cuts - and demand for food banks has rocketed.

What we see out there is an affordable housing crisis, particularly in the rental market in cities big and small, and we don't have the resources necessary to fill that gap.