Thanks for providing a source, but I’m very skeptical of anybody using averages to represent this rather than the median. If you put 99 destitute and homeless people in a room along with Elon Musk the average net worth in that room is over 4 billion dollars, which to put it mildly does not reflect the reality of most people in the room.
It certainly is higher than in 1946, but not as high as it should be relative to income or purchasing power, which I think is why the meme is effective. Assuming somebody else in this thread was correct when thy said $5k in 1946 is equivalent to $80k today that’s a sixteen-fold difference, but I’m extremely skeptical that the average American is able to save 16x what his great-grandfather did, whereas the price of everything (housing, food, whatever) has increased far more. It isn’t a healthy position for a developed society to be in, especially one without public healthcare. If I were an American and had only $5k in the bank I’d be terrified.
Thanks for providing a source, but I’m very skeptical of anybody using averages to represent this rather than the median. If you put 99 destitute and homeless people in a room along with Elon Musk the average net worth in that room is over 4 billion dollars, which to put it mildly does not reflect the reality of most people in the room.
Doing this by savings brackets actually avoids this problem but I would agree in another scenario.
If we exclude the top two savings brackets we arrive at 46% of Americans having over $5,000 and under $250,000 in savings outside a 401k.
Im certain that is a higher percentage of Americans with $5,000 savings than in 1946!
It certainly is higher than in 1946, but not as high as it should be relative to income or purchasing power, which I think is why the meme is effective. Assuming somebody else in this thread was correct when thy said $5k in 1946 is equivalent to $80k today that’s a sixteen-fold difference, but I’m extremely skeptical that the average American is able to save 16x what his great-grandfather did, whereas the price of everything (housing, food, whatever) has increased far more. It isn’t a healthy position for a developed society to be in, especially one without public healthcare. If I were an American and had only $5k in the bank I’d be terrified.