Middle class annihilation one penny at a time – 64% of Americans don’t have adequate savings for an unexpected $1,000 expense

MyBudget360.com
August 21, 2011

The American middle class is furious and this is reflected in how people perceive their failed government but also a financial system that has largely profited from the failures of millions. A recent Gallup poll shows that only 13 percent of Americans actually approve of Congress and the way they are handling their job. This is a record low. Of course the financial system for those too big to fail banks is doing just fine thanks to years of accommodative policy, taxpayer bailouts, and politicians that basically collect payroll checks from the HR department of these large financial institutions. As we have noted and the media fails to report, the average per capita income in the United States is $25,000. What is even more disturbing is that a recent poll found that 64 percent of Americans would not be able to shoulder even an unexpected expense of $1,000. If a transmission on a car goes down or additional medical expenses hit, it will cost well over $1,000. This is simply another reflection of how the crushing collapse of the middle class will not be televised.

$1,000 enough to crush many Americans

Source: National Foundation for Credit Counseling

The fact that $1,000 of unexpected expenses would leave many Americans gasping for financial help is troubling enough but the even more disturbing methods of how families would deal with issues that go to the debt addicted psychology of the nation. 9 percent said they would take out a loan (assuming they could) to deal with the expense. 17 percent would borrow from friends or family. Presumably these family members fall in the 36 percent category that actually have savings to deal adequately with a $1,000 unexpected expense. Another 9 percent would take out a cash advance on their credit card which is one of the worst things you could possibly do. 12 percent would sell or pawn current assets assuming it had value enough to cover $1,000. If that isn’t troubling enough, 17 percent would flat out disregard other monthly expenses. Welcome to new reality for the working and middle class in our nation.

How in the world did we get to a point where $1,000 would be a crushing blow to most families? All this coincides with the new gilded age mentality of our nation where financial oligarchs are protected at the expense of the middle class. The media simply keeps singing their songs of praise. We have another 46,000,000 Americans that are living day to day with food stamps, the highest percentage of Americans ever. This does not sound like any sort of recovery to me. To the contrary this sounds like a banking and government system simply trying to keep the public comfortable enough so they don’t realize the scandal that has taken place over the last decade. It really has been a robbery. The facts showing the top one percent income growth and no subsequent growth in the real economy highlight a twisted new system that we live in. These large banking systems abjectly failed but were socialized into existence by taxpayers. When I hear politicians ranting about working and middle class Americans needing to deal with austerity what about the financial system? Why don’t we claw back some of the trillions of dollars the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve funneled their way?

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This article was posted: Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 8:44 am

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