re: The Percentage of Americans With Less Than $1,000 in Savings Is Shocking

And so is the concept of financial responsibility among the young.

quote:

---

It's both frustrating to read the OPs facts and to read the responses.

The bottom line is, unless you're in the top 90% of income or live in podunk middle of nowhere, you've experienced considerable shrinking of buying power due to wage stagnation, home prices, health costs, college costs, food costs, etc.

I know people who think they're doing well, or are living comfortably, don't find it easy to admit that they aren't doing near as well as they should be if we lived in under a more equitable economy. Corporations have been raping workers for damn near 40 years! Pensions gone. Lowering 401k matches. Lower quality medical insurance (I mean, who here just LOVES high deductible plans?).

Sure, our 401ks may look great due to market performance over the last 6 years but what about your take home pay? How many people saw a considerable pay increase when their employer's income taxes dropped by 150% last year? How many are getting annual COLA or merit increases?

The top is just raping the rest of us and, as long as we have a few hundred grand in our 401ks, we pretend to be satisfied. frick that. Worker productivity in this country has steadily increased while wages remain stagnant. Enough is enough.

You want to rag on people for having a $500 flat screen TV? A cellphone plan? Does anyone really think that those are the types of items that are causing people to lack savings? Most folks are spending around $500 per paycheck on health insurance that they rarely use!

Quit defending the status quo. You, in the 83rd income percentile, are just as much of a fricking peasant in this economy as the welfare queen in the 9th percentile. The difference between you and her is minuscule compared to the gap between you and the guy in the 99th percentile.

---

You need a better understanding of purchasing power and to dig a little more into what you're actually talking about.

A "more equitable economy" like where? The UK, Netherlands, Germany, France? All are poorer than the U.S., especially on a PPP-adjusted basis. They are more "equal", sure, but what that means, in effect, is that their poor are about the same as ours PPP-adjusted, their middle classes are poorer than ours, and their upper-middle and upper classes are much poorer than ours.

It's why non-tradeable goods like healthcare and education and real estate tend to be more expensive in the U.S. than even our OECD peers - they are what economists call normal goods, and thus, demand increases when economic vitality is higher. Unless you're willing to vigorously cap university entrance spots or outright ration healthcare - and good luck with either of those - it is frankly laughable that you think "a more equitable economy" will lead to improved outcomes in either of those.

And overall compensation - not just wage growth - has grown in line with productivity growth. It's that ancillary benefits have swallowed up an ever-larger chunk of the compensation bucket. That has, probably, not been coincidental with the rise in the percentage of women in the workforce, a group that demands more comprehensive benefits packages while willing to give more on wages.