What the fuck is this? "How employers might help change that" Answer: they wont, they just might be forced to let employees give themselves a fee-free loan from their own retirement account, oh and here's a slightly different new emergency savings account. It's still all just your money...What the actual fuck?
What about the half of US workers that don't have a retirement account? I guess fuck them?
Paying higher wages doesn't get people to start bank accounts, much less retirement accounts.
Many people on the poorer end of the spectrum literally hide money in their walls/mattresses rather than get bank accounts - I know many of these people firsthand.
A simple blown tire that renders you only reliable way to work that doesn't pay enough to cover your basic living expenses is a catastrophic emergency that could cost around 500 bucks.
Seriously, that's what it ended up costing me, and I did part of the body work needed to be able to fit a new windshield in right. If I hadn't kept the tools around, that would have been another 500.
Mind you, the 500 I did pay out included some other body work I just couldn't physically do. The glass and installation of the glass was "only" 150 ish (can't remember what the tax was).
The one before that, that was barely under 500 was the AC unit for the house freezing up and fucking the compressor.
And 500 is a single emergency. You get hit by multiple, and you're fucked .
They are. And it would be funny if it weren't such utter bullshit. As if the sizeable chunk of the population that lives paycheck to paycheck could actually afford to hold on to a couple thousand dollars in stimulus funds. When shit is waaayyyy more expensive than it was 3 years ago and wages haven't really climbed that much.
Nobody has any fucking money. You can't afford medical, you can't afford a house, you can barely afford a car. You can barely afford rent. Everything is more expensive. Food, gas, everything. Wages can't keep up with inflation and employers could give a shit.
I work full time for CVS and I have 26 cents in my bank account, nevermind 500. I literally cannot save, every cent is expenses. When an emergency happens I am straight up fucked every time.
An emergency happened for me in june and I was homeless by July, working fucking full time. Thank fuck I have a family I can stay with.I fucking hate this country. Literally standing in line to donate plasma for gas money. Christ.
America is kinda fucked up. Seeing it from the outside, nothing is surprising, the solutions are fairly obvious. If nothing else, the direction in which to go. Yet, it's just dumb and dumber.
You had a real shot at change with Bernie Sanders. At least one of the three pieces. At this point, you'll have a revolution within the next 5-10 years that changes the two party system, or it's lights out.