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We've been a paycheck to paycheck nation for like as long as I can remember
honestly even pretty comfortable people would get wiped out by a 5-10k expense in many cases, if it weren't for the ability to go into debt or borrow against their home equity. If you don't have great credit or were already using quite a bit of credit just to get by, and you don't own any big assets like a house, you're pretty screwed.
And then the same people who will say how irresponsible these people are for not saving money they don't even have, will call you a fool if you don't invest your savings (risking taking big losses if you have to pull it out in a hurry). If you press them on it maybe they'll say you should have a buffer of 6 months of expenses saved before you start investing savings but for most people that's gonna take ages to accrue if they can even save at all, and could be wiped out by an unexpected expense in the blink of an eye. you can't just take $10-20/hr money and turn it into the savings of someone making $70-80k/yr. There isn't enough there to start accruing much gains in stonks let alone interest, and they need the liquidity in case of emergency (not if but when)
A smarter, well maintained society would see this as a problem
the system is well maintained, it's just that its purpose is as an engine of wealth transfer from the poor to the rich
people with savings are harder to debt-trap and steal from
We had a money expert explain this about 160 years ago 
Well of course, I remember seeing an economist article quite recently asserting that the people of China's massive savings were a sign their economy was about to collapse. Good old American economists are just making sure America's economy stays secure!
from another article:
You’d expect savings account balances to grow by generation — but that’s not always the case. According to our survey, only 43% of savers aged 18-24 report having $500 or less in savings, while a whopping 51% of savers aged 55-64 report the same.
And for those reporting a very low saving account balance, the 35-44 age group have the highest percentage, with 41% reporting a balance of $100 or less.
a lot of these articles seem to fall into this genre of "the way to save more money is to save more money!" and as helpful as HYSA are to that end, there is limited discussion of how to be able to contribute some/more into savings and never any discussion of wages, which would be an obvious factor when food, shelter and healthcare costs are taking bigger bites.
"If you're sick of being poor, simply acquire more money."
Also, most HYSA require a significant upfront investment ($1k+ all invested at once) in order to open an account in the first place. And as nice as 5% interest is, getting $10/year from it is pretty fucking irrelevant; it's only useful if you have a cool $10k+ to dump into it and forget.
5% of $1k is $50/year. and, generally speaking $1k in emergency savings is only the first tier savings goal. the next priority is to save 3-6 months of expenses depending on perceived job stability, which is where interest income starts to offset the cost of some cheaper utilities or a mid tier subscription add-on.
it's not really meant to provide some passive income so much as as it is an incentive to parking the savings somewhere. because the current interest rates on brick and mortar savings are butt cheeks. like 0.1% type crap.
According to LinkedIn (yeah, yeah, I know) prior to 2023 the avg time between jobs was around six months - as of this year that has increased to nine.
lmao
Do you have almost a full year of expenses and potential emergency funds saved in case the pencil pushers at your job decide to get cute?? At over a year into my job hunt after expecting this and being extremely fortunate enough to have done exactly that and still be massively struggling I can confidently say this is unsustainable. It is so far beyond the pale that I have to think that the owning class knows shit will go extremely haywire in the next decade- I'd say closer to five years, personally- that they're just abandoning any pretense and getting their final sadistic urges out of the way before they intend to retreat into their bunkers forever.
Exactly, this is a really volatile situation where most people have no ability to absorb any sort of economic shock. On top of it, most people are deeply in debt and if they lose their source of income they immediately become insolvent.
lol what? That obviously includes people who only go for pmc email job/ zoom call professional shit.
You can get a retail job within a week or two
No, it still took my wife nearly 4 months to find any of those in our immediate area to call her back last year, too. We don't own a car. I can't work manual labor or retail jobs because I am disabled. Thanks for your input.
I’m sorry, that was wrong of me, I was ableist in that comment and I’ll leave it or delete based on your input. I’m thinking leaving it up so others who might see it might learn from my mistake on the off chance they didn’t already know better…just in case, but idk.
I was projecting my own experiences and should not have done that. Not all labor markets are the same and employers discriminate a hell of a lot behind the scenes despite the minimal protections.
I was wrong, thanks for calling me on it
Thank you, that's decent of you. I get comments like that a lot and I have never had someone respond with an apology. There are also definite cases of employer discrimination that affect these statistics in more or less subtle ways, too- we know for a fact it took us longer to get any calls back because we didn't have a car even though we live in a metro area, and that my wife has a deep voice that people get really shitty about. Both of those things lead to her getting passed over, in our experience anyway. When I was a younger guy it would have been super easy for me, but I am not either of those things anymore too, lol.
That’s kind of you to say, but I was clearly i the wrong based off assumptions I made based on myself and my privilege, I have able bodied, if not able minded privilege.
For what it’s worth, I truly do regret that comment. I was bitter about all the office workers complaining about how the economy is finally hard for them too because it’s always been hard for people without that access. It led to me punching towards a comrade. Th
And for those with savings they are likely unable to refill them once they are drained
Wages stay the same and everything else goes up, what a beautiful system
blowing your emergency savings because grapes are $10 a bunch now
this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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