Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2014 - May 2015
I came across this via Gawker. The bolding is mine.
Economic Fragility
Although the survey finds that economic hardships are
common, many individuals are ill-prepared for a financial
disruption and would struggle to cover emergency
expenses.
• Forty-seven percent of respondents say they either
could not cover an emergency expense costing
$400, or would cover it by selling something or borrowing
money.
• Thirty-one percent of respondents report going
without some form of medical care in the
12 months before the survey because they could
not afford it.
Suppose you need to buy four tires for your car or repair your transmission? 47% of this country doesn’t have the cash on hand to do that.
Also, people can’t afford needed medical care but one party insists that we:
- Remove the subsidies that working people receive in order to make health insurance affordable
- Not expand Medicaid to include those who are working but are still too poor to even receive said subsidies
[…]
Retirement
Many individuals report that they are not planning for
retirement and not saving for retirement. Additionally,
even among those who are saving, respondents indicate
that they lack confidence in their ability to manage
their retirement investments.
• Thirty-nine percent of non-retirees have given little
or no thought to financial planning for retirement
and 31 percent have no retirement savings or
pension.
• Over one-half of non-retirees with self-directed
retirement accounts are either “not confident” or
only “slightly confident” in their ability to make
the right investment decisions when investing the
money in these accounts.
• Forty-five percent of non-retirees who plan to
retire expect to continue working in some capacity
during retirement to generate additional income to
cover expenses.
Looks like the retirement age is being raised one way or another.
More: 2014-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201505.pdf