64 Percent of Americans Don't Have $1,000 Saved for an Emergency

08-18-2011 • MyBudget360.com

The fact that $1,000 of unexpected expenses would leave many Americans gasping for financial help is troubling enough but the even more disturbing methods of how families would deal with issues that go to the debt addicted psychology of the nation. 9 percent said they would take out a loan (assuming they could) to deal with the expense. 17 percent would borrow from friends or family. Presumably these family members fall in the 36 percent category that actually have savings to deal adequately with a $1,000 unexpected expense. Another 9 percent would take out a cash advance on their credit card which is one of the worst things you could possibly do. 12 percent would sell or pawn current assets assuming it had value enough to cover $1,000. If that isn’t troubling enough, 17 percent would flat out disregard other monthly expenses. Welcome to new reality for the working and middle class in our nation. How in the world did we get to a point where $1,000 would be a crushing blow to most families? All this coincides with the new gilded age mentality of our nation where financial oligarchs are protected at the expense of the middle class. The media simply keeps singing their songs of praise. We have another 46,000,000 Americans that are living day to day with food stamps, the highest percentage of Americans ever. This does not sound like any sort of recovery to me.