Americans are in a quandary: We realize the importance of saving, or maintaining at least an emergency fund, but we still rank 12th globally when it comes to the percentage of our disposable income saved. While we’ve all heard the old saw from investors that “you pay yourself first” the reality of rent/mortgage, car payments, student loan debt, escalating prescription drug costs, etc. often dictates otherwise. Add to this the problem of the general unwillingness of the banking industry to offer consumer-friendly savings accounts or to even aggressively promote savings and the problem increases exponentially.
So now the coronavirus is upon us. People have had their hours scaled back dramatically or, in some cases, lost their jobs entirely and the health insurance that goes with it and find themselves with either no war chest of savings on which to fall back or one that is insufficient to fully meet their needs. This, in turn, has caused the government to have to step in with an emergency plan to augment household income in this time of crisis.
The solution? There is no single panacea. Getting Americans to squirrel away more of their income will take the combined effort of consumers becoming more educated in saving their money, banks (by making savings accounts more attractive), and possibly even the government in the form of incentives. Perhaps with such a three-pronged attack – and the passage of time – family savings will be sufficient to address future events.Original article can be found here.