poor like you

Interesting statistic in this morning's WSJ article, "New Programs Spur Working Poor to Begin Saving."  

"One-third of U.S. households have no financial assets. An additional one-fifth have insignificant holdings."

Doing the (very elementary) math:

33% + 20% = 53% = more than half of American households have no or insignificant financial holdings

Think about it for a while and watch your brain implode.

Link:

WSJ article link  (suscription required)

•  I'm working poor................

  There's not even a chance I could save. I haven't had a salary increase in 4 years and have been told I am lucky to have a job. They're right...in these parts I am lucky.

  But save....geeze the only reason I have a bank is for automatic deposit and to pay my bills. Other than that I'm probably a burden to the bank as much as they are to me.

  by JellyPuddin on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 09:48:00 AM PDT

•  I Am Saving

  But honestly, I don't know how other people do it.  The reason that I am able to do so is because I am young, have no kids, no big health expenses and am not putting anyone through college and the like.  How do people supporting a family do it?  I just can't imagine that they are saving much.

  by bink on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 09:55:20 AM PDT

  •  I am a good example of the non-saver.

    I am still relatively young (33) but married with a 2 year old daughter.  My wife doesn't work so she can stay home & care for our daughter.  If she did work, virtually all of it would go toward paying for daycare.

    I make just enough to pay the mortgage and the rest of the bills with little to nothing left over.  I don't have a significant level of debt--my house has probably about $40k in equity student loans paid, I have no credit card bills & own one car that is completely paid for & another that will be paid for in about 6 months.

    But I still can't afford to save anything.  The reason for that is I pay ~$7,000/year for my health insurance, which doesn't even cover dental or eye.  And I just got the word from my employer (who actually foots 1/2 the bill) that our insurance premiums are going up 30% this year.  (That's not a typo - 30%.)  So I was hoping that I would be able to start saving this year with paying off the one car, but I probably won't be able to because of the health insurance hit I'm going to take.

    Each time I get a pay increase, most (if not all) goes to pay the increased health insurance bill.  I even lost money on the deal once in the last 5 years.

    by GTPinNJ on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 10:16:00 AM PDT

    •  get in contact with me

      greg.morgan -at- gmail.com

      I would like to talk to you, see what kind of work you do. My employer has low-cost insurance and a regional office in Edgewater.

      by roboton on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 10:41:43 AM PDT

      •  I am an attorney. n/t

        by GTPinNJ on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 10:50:13 AM PDT

•  It puzzles me

  how someone is supposed to save.

  Ok, you manage to scrape $50 bucks together to save a month. That's only $600 a year. So then the car transmission croaks, that's $1,200. to fix so do you use your "savings" or put it on (another) credit card, which decreases the amount available to save because of the increased payment?

  It's impossible.
  utahgirl

  by nio on Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 10:16:27 AM PDT