That’s becoming my take, too. What surveys mean to ask is liquid assets, money people have immediate access to. But most Americans are too uneducated to understand what that means, so they ask about cash. But many people probably think that’s a question about how much paper money they have.
Basically, they ask a question in a dumb way to get around how dumb Americans are, but the result is a dumb statistic.
We defined cash savings as checking accounts that people consider savings, savings accounts, money market accounts, brokerage/investment accounts (nonretirement), certificates of deposit (CDs) and cash at home.
it’s a dumb stat to push a dumb headline that seems dramatic so people can bias-confirm about how poor they are.
even if they are objectively not. i live in an area with 3 million dollar homes and 1 million dollar apartments, and every owner here will love to tell you how poor they are and how they are struggling in life and they dont’ have enough money.
i remember being in college and people whining about how broke they were, when they were dropping $5000 on a single spring break trip… statistically yeah those people are ‘broke’ but their parents were often millionaires.
That’s becoming my take, too. What surveys mean to ask is liquid assets, money people have immediate access to. But most Americans are too uneducated to understand what that means, so they ask about cash. But many people probably think that’s a question about how much paper money they have.
Basically, they ask a question in a dumb way to get around how dumb Americans are, but the result is a dumb statistic.
That’s not at all what they asked.
How dare you expect someone to actually read the source!
Liquid assets is how I understand cash.
it’s a dumb stat to push a dumb headline that seems dramatic so people can bias-confirm about how poor they are.
even if they are objectively not. i live in an area with 3 million dollar homes and 1 million dollar apartments, and every owner here will love to tell you how poor they are and how they are struggling in life and they dont’ have enough money.
i remember being in college and people whining about how broke they were, when they were dropping $5000 on a single spring break trip… statistically yeah those people are ‘broke’ but their parents were often millionaires.