Me too......
Posted on 05/25/2011 11:46:22 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Nearly half of Americans say that they definitely or probably couldn’t come up with $2,000 in 30 days, according to new research, raising concerns about the financial fragility of many households.
In a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Annamaria Lusardi of the George Washington School of Business, Daniel J. Schneider of Princeton University and Peter Tufano of Harvard Business School used data from the 2009 TNS Global Economic Crisis survey to document widespread financial weakness in the U.S. and other countries.
The survey asked a simple question, “If you were to face a $2,000 unexpected expense in the next month, how would you get the funds you need?” In the U.S., 24.9% of respondents reported being certainly able, 25.1% probably able, 22.2% probably unable and 27.9% certainly unable. The $2,000 figure “reflects the order of magnitude of the cost of an unanticipated major car repair, a large copayment on a medical expense, legal expenses, or a home repair,” the authors write. On a more concrete basis, the authors cite $2,000 as the cost of an auto transmission replacement and research that reported low-income families claim to need about $1500 in savings for emergencies.
Financial fragility isn’t limited to low-income groups. “Households with socioeconomic markers of vulnerability (income, wealth, wealth losses, education, women, families with children) are more likely to be financially fragile, and substantially more so,” the authors write. “The more surprising finding is that a material fraction of seemingly ‘middle class’ Americans also judge themselves to be financially fragile, reflecting either a substantially weaker financial position than one would expect, or a very high level of anxiety or pessimism. Both are important in terms of behavior and for public policy.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
The answer for most families is, I suspect simple. Put it on a credit card.
Do that enough, and you have 30,000 in CC debt.
Empathically, NO...you cannot make (clear, take home, save) $2000 in two months by selling your ‘stuff’ on eBay and delivering pizzas as a second job.
And anyone who believes so, or believes that anyone living ‘hand to mouth’ is lazy, has ‘big screen tvs and cell phones’ etc., has lived a truly blessed life.
Any family is one major illness away from the situation described. Sadly I know this first hand.
As I rethink it, maybe it is correct.
A couple months ago I had a car repair bill around 2 grand. I paid with my debit card and got a strange look. The same thing happened when I bought my daughter a good digital camera, a little over $500. I paid with my debit card and got the same look.
The industry in which I built a successful business for 15 years has crashed, but it's my choice that I'm being affected by it. Got it.
People may be broke but they’re nowhere’s near as broke as the gubbermint is. Cept the gubbermint can print money, take money, and run up the credit card.
You are my new best friend! Thank you for saying that. I’m beating myself up enough over here. I just did our budget and we can buy everything I sent my husband and have it paid off in 6 months. This includes new desks for the kids. I hate shopping but I can’t wait for the weekend!! :o)
“Businesses need to go back to the pension program.”
I’ll do you one better. We need to all start acting our wage and quit buying “stuff” that we don’t need to impress people we don’t even know. If people would just start taking care of themselves, instead of relying on others, then we would not see this problem that is now the “normal” in America.
They are poseurs
wow you got off super cheap
both of mine were over 25 grand, hardly fancy, and didn't get a penny from the groom's parents, unfortunately
all the grandchildren are a wonderful payback tho
Me too......
Their overall number was 20% more for federal employees on the average. There's a column missing on that table: the number of employees in each category. To get the overall average, you need that.
Also, the list has some interesting anomalies, such as the gap in favor of the private sector for aviators. But you figure, most of those federal aviators are young and in the military and can good look forward to lucrative civilian flying careers when they get out.
BTW, NGOs pay even better, especially the international state-supported ones. For instance, I read that, prior to his recent stumble, Dominque Strauss-Kahn was pulling down $450k/yr tax free. That's more than Zero gets paid, and he owes taxes on his pay.
My daughter’s wedding in 2008 cost about $18,000 and we paid for 2/3s of it, with the B&G and his parents putting up the rest.
Now my son is getting married in a year and HER parents are AWOL when it comes to discussing wedding finances. It’s actually very sad for my future DIL as she takes their lack of interest personally. Her parents both adore my son so it’s not *that* AFAIK.
Thankfully, the wedding will be on the small side and will only cost about $12,000, of which we will pay $5,000. The days when the bride’s family paid for practically the whole thing are long gone....
Mrs. Prince of Space
But you still need to rein in medicare. The problem is, due to direct government involvement in payments, there is no market discipline in the sector. That means either it grows until it bankrupts the country or Obama gets his death panels, benefits are cut arbitrarily to control costs, and doctors become fast food entrepreneurs.
What Ryan is proposing is very modest, hardly a cut at all. He wants to turn into Medicare into a system like that currently enjoyed by members of Congress. You would get an allowance you could use to procure your health insurance from a wide variety of minimally regulated suppliers. That would introduce an element of competition back into the industry and hopefully stop the uncontrolled cost escalation.
1) Savings
2) Credit Card (Boo Hoo)
3) Family Member
4) Bank or Credit Card Loan
This would have given better data.
Another Question should be asked
If you lost your job today what would happen to your house?
1) My spouse could keep up the payments and we would survive.
2) My spouse could keep up the payment for a little while due to savings.
3) We would be unable to pay the next months installment.
4) We own the home and have no payments (yippee!)
“One of the problems with the private sector is that they pay way too much to their employees.”
Well said, Comrade!
No flat screen and I hate Starbucks, but I've got a cell phone, because I don't have a landline and I've got about a 6 pack in the fridge........which is about ready to croak and we've been putting something aside to replace it --- AFTER we replace the car.
Look. We make choices in life. Some people make the choice to live broke.
We didn't make the choice to live broke, but it happened. We're working to turn things around, but contrary to what seems to be popular belief around here, not everyone who falls on hard times is there by choice.
Stereotype comments such as this are insulting to those who really are struggling in this economy. And I know I'm not the only FReeper who was hit hard in the past few years.
So your position (taken from this post together with your previous one lamenting the demise of corporate pensions) seems to be that it's better when a company pays someone less in cash than what they're worth, so they can have some to give them later as a pension.
Is that how you'd want your employer to treat you? What if the management of the company 30 years from now happens to be ultra-PC and demands you pass their test for allegiance to green orthodoxy or lack of homophobia or they won't pay you? How do you protect yourself from that? How do you get compensated for assuming the risk that the company will go out of business and the pension fund will be liquidated, or non-existent? Wouldn't it be better for them to just give you what they owe you, in cash, shoot, at the end of every day? Forget every two weeks. Even scrub this stupid "health insurance" scam. It's causing more trouble than it solved.
A lot of people live pay check to pay check because of the economy. Even if they work decently paid jobs. Just a couple of quick illnesses and surgeries in 1 spouse, time lost from work to recover and 10 or more of those 20% their health ins didn’t cover bills to be paid (labs, docs, hospitals), with another surgery needed, when the right procedure wasn’t done first, because of ‘no history on the GYN problems’, and they are more than in a bind. You get scared you will get fired if you have to take another medical leave so soon, and you sure can’t afford the time off, much less any new medical bills.
Life is not always fair. This couple pays their bills, but sudden illness/surgery can decimated any savings you have. And leave you in a financial hole for a long time.
Not a bad post from you. However, let’s put it this way, my Grandfather worked at Coca Cola for 30 years or more and received a pension for life. There never seemed to be any problems in America during that time. He died in 1998 at age 79. Suddenly the companies are getting rid of pensions and they are having problems all over the place. So is America for that matter. If we still ran things like they did back in the day, we would be better off and you wouldn’t have to worry about the gay lifestyle (which is sorta weird example for a pension).
hahaha bet its more than half!
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