Growing Number of Americans Can’t Cover Basic Expenses if Job Loss or Other Emergency Strikes

[Seedersandleechers]

Washington, DC—In the United States, 27 percent of all households are “asset poor,” meaning they lack the savings or other assets to cover basic expenses for just three months if a layoff or other emergency leads to loss of income, according to the 2012 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard, released today by the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED). Since the release of the 2009-2010 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard, the number of asset poor families has increased by 21 percent from one in five families to one in four families. The asset poverty rate is now nearly twice as high as the Census Bureau’s official income poverty rate of 15.1 percent.

For the first time the Assets & Opportunity Scorecard also includes a measure for “liquid asset poverty,” which excludes assets such as a home, business or car that can’t easily be converted to cash, and consequently provides a more realistic picture of the resources families have to meet emergency needs. According to that measure, 43 percent of households nationwide are “liquid asset poor” with little or no savings to fall back on if emergency strikes.

“Growing numbers of families have almost no savings or other assets to see them through if they lose their jobs or face a medical crisis,” said Andrea Levere, president of CFED. “Without savings, few will be able to build a more economically secure future, including buying a home, saving for their children’s college educations or building a retirement nest egg.”
Levere added that the Scorecard findings are “particularly disturbing in the context of precipitous drops in incomes for many Americans and widening of the wealth gap between the richest and poorest households.”



http://assetsandopportunity.org/scorecard/assets/National_Press_Release_Final.pdf

[tularetom]

1. This is an apt description of many in my family

And a lot of them have little or no equity in homes that they have lived in for a decade or more because they borrowed against their equity to buy cars, boats, travel etc before the market took a dump. They are a couple of paychecks away from living in their cars or trying to move back with us.

[LiberalFighter]

2. Generations Project has a paper that describes the positive effect RTW has on many segments of socie

has on many segments of society including senior citizens.
Critical Public Policy Questions "Regarding Right to Work" and the Potential Impact on Senior Citizens and Persons with Disabilities in Indiana.

One of the things I got out his report is that when families have a good paying job that is the result of union wages they are less likely to be receiving government support and are not as much of a drain on society when there are down times. These same families are able to assist other members in their family when they are in need. As it stands now with wages being pushed down families are unable to survive much above water let alone help others out in need.

[provis99]

3. and the reason is that the 1% have been stealing their money.

It's as simple as that.