By CANDICE CHOI and EILEEN AJ CONNELLY 10/14/11 04:13 PM ET
Huffington Post
NEW YORK -- The Occupy Wall Street protests are hitting a nerve.
It may be why the protests have spread to other cities – including Boston, Cincinnati, Seattle and Washington, D.C. – after taking root in downtown New York nearly a month ago.
Take for example the unemployment rate, which has been stuck near 9 percent since the recession officially ended more than two years ago. When counting those who settle for part-time work or have quit looking, that rate rises to about 16.5 percent.
A crippled labor market also shifts bargaining power to employers, giving workers less leverage to seek raises. That could help explain why pay was nearly 2 percent less in August than it was a year earlier when adjusted for inflation.
Student loans are another common rallying point for protesters – as expressed in one sign that read "Want demands? How about student loan bailouts?"
The struggle to keep up with payments is clear; about 320,000 borrowers who entered repayment in 2009 defaulted on their student loans by the end of 2010, according to the Institute for College Access & Success. That's up about 33 percent from the previous year.
Meanwhile, the cost of annual health insurance premiums for family coverage rose 9 percent this year and surpassed $15,000 for the first time, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust. Some don't have to worry about the uptick; an estimated 16 percent of the population does not have health insurance.
It's that economic backdrop that has driven a diversity of protesters to the streets
While a few hundred have been camping out in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, many more join in for a few hours or a day to add their voices. Here's a look at some of the protesters who ventured by in the past week, and the financial issues they're dealing with: Read more...
