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Paycheck to Paycheck
How most people you see today are barely keeping afloat
- What is being liquid asset poor?[1]
- Being %44 of Americans
- Or not having enough savings to make it through three months of unemployment
MYTH: If you’re not making ends meet in America, you’re doing something wrong.
- Median household income fell from $53,000 in 2000, to $49,500 in 2010
- Meanwhile housing, education, and healthcare have risen to 75% of discretionary income
- From 50% in 1975
- In 40 years:
- +113% college tuition
- +50% healthcare costs
- +20% gas prices
While the recession has gotten better, U.S. savings rates have remained unchanged for 3 years.
- It’s not that we don’t have money. It’s that U.S. income inequality is ranked with Cameroon, Madagascar, Rwanda, Uganda, all of which are severaly inequal. [5]
- CEO’s make a record 273x what the average American makes.
- With the middle class making a record low of %45 of the nation’s earnings.
So make your choice
- 1/4th of Americans only have $100 set aside for an emergency
- One new tire, or
- 1.5 hours of a plumber, or
- coping with unemplyment for a very short time, or
- Copay for four sick family members (without rx)
- 1/2 of Americans only have $800 set aside for an emergency
- Half a new transmission, or
- One months rent (avg rent in America), or
- Half an emergency room visit, or
- One last minute plane ticket
Being liquid asset poor is one financial setback away from being on food stamps. It is rampant in many parts of the country.
- With unmarried women 89% likelier to be liquid asset poor than unmarried men
- High school dropouts 515% likelier than Bachelor’s degree holders
- households of color 2 times as likely as white households
- And the worst concentrations in blacks (65%) and Alabamans (46.5%)
We’ve worked too hard to have the traditionally disadvanted living this close to ruin. Support infrastructure, fight predatory banking practices, and push financial literacy.
- Citations
- http://assetsandopportunity.org/assets/pdf/2013_Scorecard_Report.pdf
- http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-live-on-the-edge-of-financial-ruin-cfed-report-2013-2
- http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-savings/index.html
- http://www.businessinsider.com/43-of-us-households-are-living-an-emergency-away-from-food-stamps-2012-2
- http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/map-us-ranks-near-bottom-on-income-inequality/245315/
