re: Excluding home equity, the median 40-44 year old has a net worth of just $58,000

quote:

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Take two 40yos living in the same town doing the same high paying job but one has paid off a $2mm home and has $58k as an emergency fund and the other rents has $2mm in equities and $58k in an emergency fund. Their actually financial health would require a deep dive but the guy with $2mm in equity is not significantly worse off than the guy with $2mm in equities. Long term I would say they are in very similar situations in the short term the calculus becomes more complex.

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Correct. The core point of the OP is just that fairly old people are shockingly cash poor. There is merit in that observation. But it's a very blunt tool to actually understanding reality on the ground.

And it still strikes me as odd that the same people who relentlessly promote home ownership also then sort of complain when people build home equity.