{"id":48946,"date":"2023-05-05T00:03:24","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T04:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=48946"},"modified":"2023-05-05T00:03:24","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T04:03:24","slug":"most-americans-say-they-lack-ready-cash-to-cover-a-surprise-400-expense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=48946","title":{"rendered":"Most Americans say they lack ready cash to cover a surprise $400 expense – Autoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most Americans don\u2019t have the financial resources to cover a surprise expense of $400 \u2014 a car or appliance repair<\/a>, or a medical bill \u2014 without taking on debt, according to a new survey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just over one-third of respondents said they have cash on hand to cover the expense, and the figure rises to 48% when including those who said they\u2019d use a credit card but pay it off immediately before incurring interest charges, according to a poll conducted by decision intelligence company Morning Consult for Bloomberg News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among the remainder, most said they\u2019d borrow via cards or some other kind of debt to meet the expense, while 17% said they would not be able to pay it at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The data highlight widespread financial fragility, even in an economy with unemployment near 50-year lows, and the erosion of the savings cushion that some households built up in the pandemic. It also shows how many Americans could be pushed into taking on more debt \u2014 even as interest rates surge \u2014 by a relatively commonplace event.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had two really strong years of jobs growth and there has been a lot of coverage of wage compression, with lower-income earners actually experiencing more rapid wage growth,\u201d said John Leer, chief economist at The Morning Consult. \u201cAnd despite all of that, there is still a group of predominantly lower-income adults who are extremely vulnerable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The findings show that millions of families, if they were faced by an unexpected $400 expense, wouldn\u2019t be able to pay some of their other bills.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the inability to pay isn\u2019t confined to the lowest-income households. About 20% of the middle-income bracket \u2014 those with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 \u2014 said they couldn\u2019t cover a $400 expense with cash or equivalents. The figure was 8% among who make more than $100,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The poll results are similar to the Fed\u2019s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, known as the SHED survey. The next edition of that study is likely to be published in the coming weeks. The new Morning Consult\/Bloomberg survey will be conducted on a quarterly basis in the future.<\/p>\n

The poll shows that emergency expenses aren\u2019t that uncommon. Overall, 44% of respondents said they had such an expense in the prior month, with the most frequent cause being vehicle-related costs, followed by medical bills. The median size of an emergency expense was $483, and many respondents reported that they\u2019d been hit with more than one.<\/p>\n

The changing structure of the labor market, with more people reliant on gig work, may also be adding to uncertainty around income and making budgeting harder, according to Sofia Baig, an economist at The Morning Consult. Those kinds of work arrangement also leave many families depending on unscheduled and likely higher-cost childcare, which adds to financial strains, she said.<\/p>\n

The Morning Consult survey was conducted between April 12-16, among more than 11,000 respondents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most Americans don\u2019t have the financial resources to cover a surprise expense of $400 \u2014 a car or appliance repair, or a medical bill \u2014 without taking on debt, according to a new survey.\u00a0 Just over one-third of respondents said they have cash on hand to cover the expense, and the figure rises to 48% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}