We've been a paycheck to paycheck nation for like as long as I can remember
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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honestly even pretty comfortable people would get wiped out by a 5-10k expense in many cases, if it weren't for the ability to go into debt or borrow against their home equity. If you don't have great credit or were already using quite a bit of credit just to get by, and you don't own any big assets like a house, you're pretty screwed.
And then the same people who will say how irresponsible these people are for not saving money they don't even have, will call you a fool if you don't invest your savings (risking taking big losses if you have to pull it out in a hurry). If you press them on it maybe they'll say you should have a buffer of 6 months of expenses saved before you start investing savings but for most people that's gonna take ages to accrue if they can even save at all, and could be wiped out by an unexpected expense in the blink of an eye. you can't just take $10-20/hr money and turn it into the savings of someone making $70-80k/yr. There isn't enough there to start accruing much gains in stonks let alone interest, and they need the liquidity in case of emergency (not if but when)
A smarter, well maintained society would see this as a problem
the system is well maintained, it's just that its purpose is as an engine of wealth transfer from the poor to the rich
people with savings are harder to debt-trap and steal from
Even this statistic has it's numbers massaged by choosing such a low dollar amount. I mean sure whatever, 1000 bucks ain't nothing but that isn't what I'm saying.
I bet if you put it to say, 10k instead (which isn't even a large hospital expenditure in the US), that percentage would be ~99%.
These damn articles can't even speak truth without stuffing the reader with gaslighting ass lines like this gem.
It’s quite remarkable in the current environment that even with low unemployment and a job market that has been both robust and resilient in recent years, that we still have this remarkably low percentage of Americans who could pay this emergency expense,” he adds.
Hey, fuck you Hamrick!
Explaining to a financial advice columnist that just because there are many jobs, that does not mean any of them pay well
Fake ass job haver telling the rest of us about how good the jobs are. Fucking nepo baby shitheads.
10k would make for a pretty nice six month emergency fund which falls around the standard advice given by financial advisors.
from another article:
You’d expect savings account balances to grow by generation — but that’s not always the case. According to our survey, only 43% of savers aged 18-24 report having $500 or less in savings, while a whopping 51% of savers aged 55-64 report the same.
And for those reporting a very low saving account balance, the 35-44 age group have the highest percentage, with 41% reporting a balance of $100 or less.
a lot of these articles seem to fall into this genre of "the way to save more money is to save more money!" and as helpful as HYSA are to that end, there is limited discussion of how to be able to contribute some/more into savings and never any discussion of wages, which would be an obvious factor when food, shelter and healthcare costs are taking bigger bites.
Also, most HYSA require a significant upfront investment ($1k+ all invested at once) in order to open an account in the first place. And as nice as 5% interest is, getting $10/year from it is pretty fucking irrelevant; it's only useful if you have a cool $10k+ to dump into it and forget.
5% of $1k is $50/year. and, generally speaking $1k in emergency savings is only the first tier savings goal. the next priority is to save 3-6 months of expenses depending on perceived job stability, which is where interest income starts to offset the cost of some cheaper utilities or a mid tier subscription add-on.
it's not really meant to provide some passive income so much as as it is an incentive to parking the savings somewhere. because the current interest rates on brick and mortar savings are butt cheeks. like 0.1% type crap.
We had a money expert explain this about 160 years ago 
And for those with savings they are likely unable to refill them once they are drained
Wages stay the same and everything else goes up, what a beautiful system
blowing your emergency savings because grapes are $10 a bunch now