Report: Nearly half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck

A new report from the Corporation for Enterprise Development shows that 44% of Americans are "liquid asset poor" and are forced to live from paycheck to paycheck.

Time Magazine:

The economic picture is looking brighter these days. The federal government announced Thursday that economic growth had picked up to its fastest pace in two years, while employment growth over the past five months has averaged a healthy 185,000 new jobs. But as evidenced by a report out Thursday from the Corporation for Enterprise Development, nearly half of Americans are living in a state of "persistent economic insecurity," that makes it "difficult to look beyond immediate needs and plan for a more secure future."
In other words, too many of us are living paycheck to paycheck. The CFED calls these folks "liquid asset poor," and its report finds that 44% of Americans are living with less than $5,887 in savings for a family of four. The plight of these folks is compounded by the fact that the recession ravaged many Americans' credit scores to the point that now 56% percent of us have subprime credit. That means that if emergencies arise, many Americans are forced to resort to high-interest debt from credit cards or payday loans.
And this financial insecurity isn't just affected the lower classes. According to the CFED, one-quarter of middle-class households also fall into the category of "liquid asset poor." Geographically, most of the economically insecure are clustered in the South and West, with Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Nevada, and Arkansas being the states with the highest percentage of financially insecure.

Yes and So What?! That's me. It's the way I live my life and for the most part always have. Now don't get me wrong. Building and having financial security is certainly preferable. But I don't consider myself part of the “victim class” because I'm essentially week to week.

Au contraire...I feel blessed! Blessed to have been born in the USA at a time (1950) when the “Greatest Generation” had won WW2 and was about to launch an American Economic tsunami that would sweep vast numbers of people into secure comfortable middle class lives.

I was privileged to evolve in a rare time and place in human history, when the average person had an opportunity for self determination and a comfortable existence free of the fear and terror that plagued most human beings over millenia.

So as I continue on my journey, I am thankful to God and the diligent hard working Americans who came before me, who built our nation, secured our freedoms and generously handed me a rich OPPORTUNITY.

I am happy to be alive and kicking...pay check to paycheck...in the GREATEST Nation ever devised by Man/Woman.

The politicians in office now are indeed inept enough to not only import a slave class to pay for our retirement, but to also not ask us what we think about it. If they are doing this, it would be a very stupid idea. to begin with, it assures a permanent blue country which guarantees economic failure all around. The Republican Party will be gone

But amnesty and open borders has, in my opinion, much more to do with a selfish, short sighted, power and money greedy motivation

If asked whether I’d rather work and put money away for retirement or accommodate a lot of pushy people who not only will not appreciate and respect our culture and language not to mention our borders, but who bully me into speaking their language, all aided and abetted by commerce. I’ll take self reliance.

Press one for English, favoritism in scholarship funding, cheap labor, that comes from politicians planning our retirement?

I don’t know

This is not surprising. Almost everyone goes through a period in their life where they live paycheck to paycheck.

I did that much of my working life. Most of my paychecks went into maintaining my home, then into investment properties. I didn't consider that as wasting my money, instead I saw it as a way of saving. It did work, as I was able to cash in at the peak of the real estate bubble in 2005 and retire early (although I now have rental properties again, but no mortgages this time around).

Remember when you could write-off the interest you paid on credit cards and car loans?

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Yes I do. It added up to quite a bit since interest rates were pretty high back then.

Our family would be considered by many to be wealthy. But, during college and for a decade afterwards, we lived paycheck to paycheck.

Raman noodles were par for the course.

Associates of mine were buying BMW’s and Mercedes, we were driving used cars.

They had mansions with only 3-4 rooms furnished. We lived modestly.

Now, they are hurting financially.

Our years of living frugally paid off.

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