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Over half of Americans say they're not even close to financial freedom
(scrippsnews.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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That was actually a study that was completely misrepresented by the media. What the people actually said in the study is that if they were presented with an unexpected expense of $500, they would charge it, not that they didn't have the money. But then unscrupulous mukrakers took that study and reported it as "50% of Americans say they don't have enough cash to cover an unexpected $500 expense!". There are plenty of valid reasons to charge an unexpected expense, regardless of how much money you have in the bank.
Oh wow that's wild
Edit: No, that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm seeing multiple sources (go banking, bankrate, Princeton) all corroborating the lack of savings. It looks like bankrate does the surveys annually too: https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/emergency-savings-report
Bankrate doesn't ask the savings number directly so that's maybe what you were seeing, but go banking does:
https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/savings-advice/nearly-half-of-americans-have-less-than-500-in-savings-how-you-can-beat-trend/
"Methodology: GOBankingRates surveyed 1,002 Americans aged 18 and older from across the country on between January 30 and February 1, 2023, asking six different questions: (1) How much savings do you have?; ..."