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Paycheck To Paycheck

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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
    1. http://assetsandopportunity.org/assets/pdf/2013_Scorecard_Report.pdf
    2. http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-live-on-the-edge-of-financial-ruin-cfed-report-2013-2
    3. http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-savings/index.html
    4. http://www.businessinsider.com/43-of-us-households-are-living-an-emergency-away-from-food-stamps-2012-2
    5. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/map-us-ranks-near-bottom-on-income-inequality/245315/
    6. paycheck_300