In a recent GoBankingRates study, 69% of adults admitted to having less than $1,000 in the bank, while 34% said they actually don’t have any savings at all. But apparently, this collective lack of savings doesn’t get all that much better with age. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found not so long ago that almost half of Americans die nearly broke. Of the general population, 46% of retirees die with savings of $10,000 or less. But that number climbs to 57%
among retirees who are single. Now when we take other assets, like homes, into account, the picture gets a bit less bleak. Still, 57% of single-adult households and 50% of widowed households had no housing equity to show for when they died. The problem is that dying nearly broke isn’t just a matter of denying one’s beneficiaries an inheritance. Rather, it points to a frightening degree of financial vulnerability during retirement. READ MORE
In 2013, 49% of all americans were receiving some sort of government benefit and 27% lived in a household where at least one household member was on Medicaid. Relying on any type of government benefit conditions a person to simply wait for their next handout, wait for their food card to reload, wait for the next liberal politician to get them some free junk, etc. It does not condition or motivate a person to work hard at a job, study hard at school, SAVE their money, be responsible for their life in general. These statistics do not seem that surprising to me at all. Many americans have focused their entire lives around ways to “shake down” the government so they don’t have to work, pay for college, pay for insurance for themselves or their children.