Nearly A Third Of Workers Have Less Than $1,000 In Savings

If you stopped working and had to live off what you had in the bank, could you do it?

For many Americans, the answer is a definite "no."

Nearly a third of all workers polled in a recent survey said they have less than a thousand dollars in savings. Another third say they have some money saved, but it's not more than $25,000. And fewer and fewer people are setting money aside for retirement.

These figures come from a study released Tuesday by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonprofit research organization. EBRI's report suggests that the economic pain of the present moment is going to echo into the future for many Americans -- that today's slow job market and underwhelming wage growth are going to translate, down the line, into a population unprepared to leave the workforce.

About one in every eight people polled by EBRI said they're not at all confident that they'll be able to cover their basic expenses once they retire.

Do you have a meaningful emergency savings account? Email: [e-mail] and tell us your story.

If the present is any guide, these workers are right to be pessimistic. Over nine million retirees can't afford basic living expenses right now, according to a recent report from the group Wider Opportunities for Women.

The difficulties of putting money aside -- especially in an environment where more than 12 million people are out of work, and employees who want to get a raise have little leverage to do so -- have become especially apparent in recent months. In January, the Corporation for Enterprise Development, a nonprofit group, reported that more than 40 percent of all U.S. households have so little in the way of savings that one financial emergency is all it would take to put them below the poverty line.

And people who suffer such an emergency might find that there's no safety net in place to help them. A federal initiative known as the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, which aims to keep people from losing their homes, is due to come to an end this year -- and analysts at the National Alliance to End Homelessness say that more people could soon be living on the street as a result.

Comments

[morph2020]

10:55 PM on 12/15/2012

When we are speaking of an enumerated list, it is not correct to use the adverb form for each element. Don't say "firstly, secondly, etc." Instead say "first, second, third, etc" Each element in the list is a noun or another part of speech acting as a noun, so it requires the adjective form for the modifier, not the adverb (-ly) form.

[Joe Goforth]

12:35 AM on 07/15/2012

The distruction of the middle class is nearly complete. I hear the howl of the billion dollar campain money on the trail to finish the job. God help us.

[Dana1982]

11:55 AM on 07/03/2012

But if you ask these same people if they have a smart phone, a data plan, a high defination wide screen tv, and the cable plan to watch these programs of HD, they all almost always say yes.

Anyone can save 5% of their salary, most can save 10%. The question is the choices you make.

[SueZbell]

02:27 AM on 03/21/2012

you have to have $ in excess of minimum necessities to set it aside for anything

[janmB]

06:36 PM on 03/15/2012

The republicans do a better job of selling their points on the "redistribution of wealth". They have convinced their less fortunate base to endure this false pride in being poor. Because under the GOP policies and the party of moral principles based on the Bible there were better days to come....maybe if not now...but in their future.....one can PRAY on it.
And that would mean that anyone of wealth would continue to prosper off of those who have been underpaid for decades. A fine setup if I do say so.

[livingdangerously]

06:35 PM on 06/10/2012

JanmB -thanks for this post. Fan #518

[Y3rMawm]

01:32 AM on 03/15/2012

Long ago, a good friend advised me to have at least 6 months of savings. I took this advise.

If Ben Dover, the O'Bamabot, and the CONgress Critters can resist the urge to destroy my savings through unproductive vote buying, I have a year of savings stashed away.

They won't, of course. They cannot.

[Michael Steaphens]

02:58 AM on 03/15/2012

What have you heard(if anything)about the Democrat's(and perhaps Obama's)idea to seize personal savings?I believe the Argentinean government had seized all private pension and retirement accounts to fund government programs and to address a ballooning deficit years ago,and have heard of our Democrat politicians wanting to do the same.
The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers’ retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration(this is from an article about that)..

[Y3rMawm]

03:53 PM on 03/15/2012

Can't recall the details, but a couple of years ago I read a "trial balloon" doc that was leaked, I think from the treasury about this very idea.

I could be wrong, but I don't think we would see outright seizure. They might however, "encourage" more investment in treasuries. This of course merely kicks the can.

After MF Global, all bets are off. I am convinced they are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

[SueZbell]

02:29 AM on 03/21/2012

read about someone suggesting pooling all retirement money--not "seizing" it

[knotsofast]

01:30 AM on 03/15/2012

The money printer (Bernanke) and the ongoing crushing deficits and debt (Bush and Obama) given to us force inflationary money debasement. We must inflate to just make debt payments. You pay the inflation devil. Can't save? 4 Years of trillion $ plus in new debt...Massive theft of savers $$. QEs till forever.

[Y3rMawm]

01:27 AM on 03/15/2012

There can be no lending, if there are no pools of capital from which to lend.

[Terri Skau]

01:41 AM on 03/15/2012

So true my dear friend...:-)

[Y3rMawm]

01:46 AM on 03/15/2012

Your clarity on the topic, is truly a diamond in the proverbial rough. May the wind be always at your back.

[Kai-HK]

11:34 PM on 03/13/2012

Real autonomous private sector growth is predicated on savings not borrowing. Unfortunately, Keynesians believe that spending is really the path to prosperity both at the individual level and the state level. This is not only wrong form a common-sense perspective but from a factual and theoretical perspective. Keynesianism has never been empirically proven to work. And economies that have bought growth borrow-and-spend make-work initiatives ultimately fail. Greece has shown us that.

Unfortunately the US politicians do not have the spine to recognize that unsustainable borrowing and polices that facilitate individual credit expansion and promote consumption over savings and investment will ultimately result in a greece-like ending for economy.

The sad part is that we innately know this but we hope that the problem can be kicked down the road far enough that it is no longer our generations problem but another generations. The collective generational greed that drives us to focus on what we can get for us now is the ultimate result of a democracy that allows its constituents to vote to have its problems borne by someone else.

Frédéric Bastiat, the great nineteenth-century French economist, defined the State as “that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.”

He was right.

Kai

[janmB]

06:42 PM on 03/15/2012

The USA isn't GREECE. But, I agree there is something wrong when I read just 1 or 2% of our population own $40 trillion in assets and WE THE PEOPLE are around $14 trillion in debt.
"No new taxes" is a mantra that is meaningful to the very rich, but largely irrelevant to average working people. Thus today the uber-rich are spending hundreds of millions to make sure words like "burden" are always associated with the word "tax," and to convince average working people that they should throw out of office any politicians who are willing to raise taxes on the rich. ( The USA will fix the debt by collecting less revenue...some say)
$50,000 may feel like a minimally decent middle-class income, but it is actually more than what two-thirds of American families earn.

In the U.S., high-income groups are becoming even wealthier, while average family income is stagnating and declining. Partly as a result of this capture of economic gains by the upper brackets,

[Kai-HK]

04:23 AM on 03/16/2012

You state, ‘I read just 1 or 2% of our population own $40 trillion in assets and WE THE PEOPLE are around $14 trillion in debt.’

a) The money the 1% or 2% got is because people willingly gave it to them. Nothing wrong with that. Good luck to them they deserve the peace to enjoy their legally gotten wealth any way they want.. just as you are afforded the same right.

b) the debt is not because of them. If anything Bill gates has probably done more to create tax creating economic activity than any other man in the States, so how is taking his wealth form him because others cannot save or because others demand free medical care fare to him?

His money is not your money and your debt is not his debt? Right?

You state, ‘The USA will fix the debt by collecting less revenue...some say’

[Kai-HK]

04:24 AM on 03/16/2012

18%, not 1*T

[globality]

02:50 PM on 03/13/2012

Except for mortgage deadneats who are not paying for lodging
They are bragging about how much money they are saving

[frank day]

08:34 PM on 03/13/2012

Don't forget the Banksters who get as much as they need from Uncle Sammy.

[aforbes808]

01:49 PM on 03/13/2012

Despotism here we come.....er, are?

[marinfan]

01:29 PM on 03/13/2012

The Fed punishes savers and fixed income folks...

[Indigo1941]

01:17 PM on 03/13/2012

I'm retried and live on a fixed income but in a society where prices ever increase. Ouch! No, really! Ouch! A curse on all who jinxed a system that was working just fine!