Nearly HALF of U.S. households live just one crisis from poverty
Nearly half of U.S. households are just one piece of bad luck - such as a job redundancy or a medical emergency - from poverty, it has emerged.
A staggering 43 per cent are 'liquid-asset poor', meaning that they are above the breadline, but don't have the savings to weather an emergency.
It means around 130 million people across the country are just one crisis away from the poverty line - and would fall beneath it within three months.
In addition, 27 per cent of American households are asset poor, the report by the Corporation for Enterprise Development found.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094453/Nearly-HALF-U-S-households-live-just-crisis-poverty.html#ixzz2JdjWdFF7
CRK7376
(2,203 posts)We lived that existence for 13 years. I taught high school in the rural south and with a stay home wife and 3 kids we barely made it from check to check. I can't count how many times I was counting/rolling pennies so I could put gas in the truck the next morning to get to school. Lots of PBJ lunches and lots of macaroni cheese for dinner. NC just did not pay us enough to survive, and I was lucky, I also had Army Reserve money coming in each month. But that meant I was missing one weekend a month with my wife and kids. We survived but it was ugly. We are more stable and safe from small emergencies now, but we never forget what it was like when we were living on a teachers salary. I will be retiring from the Army in two more years and return to teaching once again. I can hardly wait to be back in a high school classroom.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Too evil, and too beholden to the hyper-rich
bemildred
(90,061 posts)It all changed after Vietnam, when we would not fight their stupid war, they decided to start keeping all the money for themselves and their friends, and they have worked relentlessly and disingenuously in that direction ever since. I watched it.
They, of course, think that they deserve to be taken care of for life, and always have.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)have a 3rd world country
nobodyspecial
(2,286 posts)We are rich! Rich I tell you!