(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)Three out of four Americans say they aren’t saving enough
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A new analysis of Americans shows that most people are not saving as much as they should at the same time people do not seem to be too concerned about it according to Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project.
Three out of four Americans say they are not saving enough, according to the survey which included 2,413 adults.
Even those that were in the list of country’s wealthiest acknowledge they are not saving enough, the survey found. Six in ten adults with family incomes of $150,000 or more say they are not saving enough for the future. Between those earning $100,000 and $150,000 a year the number increases to 79 percent.
This nationwide ‘’savings shortfall,” as Pew dubbed it, represents the majority situation of virtually every demographic group; rich or poor, male or female, black or white.
In another survey released last month by Pew and the Gallup organization, most of those surveyed said they had not improved their financial lives in the past five years. 25% said they had not moved forward while 31% said they had actually fallen backward.
For the past two decades, middle class Americans have been spending more and more while borrowing more and according to Pew the reasons are the following:
• Homes are nearly 60 percent more expensive (in inflation-adjusted dollars) now than in the mid-1980s.
• Goods and services that didn’t exist a few decades ago — such as high-definition televisions, high-speed Internet and cable or satellite subscriptions — have become commonplace consumer items.
• The costs of many of the anchors of a middle-class lifestyle — not just housing, but medical care and a college education — have increased more sharply than inflation.
• With their rising expenses, middle-income Americans have taken on more debt, often borrowing against homes that, until recently, had been rising rapidly in value.
I would attribute the recent difficulty that most Americans are facing to high prices due to inflation, high cost of living, a depressed job market, high energy and gas prices as well as a declining housing market.
A little bit more than half of middle-class respondents said they’ve had to reduce their spending habits in the last year and they expect to continue to cut back on their spending in the year ahead. A quarter of the people in this same group said they expected to have trouble paying their bills. And about a quarter of the middle class who are employed worried they could lose their jobs.
As a country Americans are saving less than 1% of their incomes. This could be the lowest savings rate since 1933!
Tags: analysis, bills, borrowing, consumer, Credit, debt, difficulty, Goods, housing, lifestyle, market, middle class, organization, percent, saving rate, savings, shortfall, spending, surveyRelated posts
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People can’t save cause they have no money left! After you account for the high cost of living, gas prices, ever increasing utility bills and inflation all while salaries and wages are stagnant, there is nothing left to save.