I hate how true this is.

Lucky you?

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/19/bank-of-america-nearly-half-of-americans-live-paycheck-to-paycheck.html

there's always gotta be at least one "let's all pay attention to how this isn't a problem for ME" chud in the comments
Yeah! Sucks for the Americans, though.
Nearly half means not half, so that's better than 50/50 odds to not be living paycheck to paycheck. That's not really that lucky, statistically speaking
- And there's a big difference between not living paycheck to paycheck, and being able to save $1k/mo
- How does that not still make the statement in the meme true? Because I think it still does. If you're not living paycheck-to-paycheck it doesn't mean you are able to amass $5000 in savings, it means you're not at risk of going into debt (or at least more debt than you're probably in thanks to things like student loans).

Wow that's amazing, billionaires must totally think you're one of them.

I wonder what he does. As a "working man."
- Lots of people are able to "save" $10k per year, depending on your definition of savings (for example, putting it into a retirement fund) but anyone who thinks they are well-off because of it don't realize where they stand on the class ladder. If you continue to stash away that ten grand every year it'll take you 42 million years to match Elon Musk's current net worth. That's so long ago that the Eurasian landmass was still a blob of disconnected islands.
  
  Jokes on you, I was indoctrinated to believe Earth was created like 5,000 years ago.
- Plenty of workers can save that money in 5 months. I don't even think that someone need a high paying job for that, depending on your expenses. Problem is that that money buys you little nowadays.
  What's that? No even a 1% of an average house anyways.
  
  See my link about half of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck and then realize that plenty of the ones that aren't have stuff they want to spend the remaining money on to make their lives less miserable like entertainment.
  Is it possible? Maybe. Is it healthy for your mental state? Probably not in a lot of the other half of Americans who can afford to save anything at all.
- The only idea that comes to mind is working for the mining industry in Austalia. My cousin's husband was a carpenter there and apparently made bank. Although from the stories they told me, most would not save a significant portion. Apparently they tend to work 14 days on, 14 days off or in similar arrangements, and be flown in and out around their shifts. A significant portion of their colleagues would choose to fly to Bali instead of their respective Australian cities, spend their 14 days off there and immediately use up their wages. Weird lifestyle overall.
- I'm a PhD researcher. I make just over €1250 a month, grant money. Portugal.
Why would you say that?

I put that much every month into my savings account.

See how stupid this contest is?

What contest? What are you people on...
- Gaslighting doesn't really work when seemingly everyone else gets the point.
  
  Oh, I was just gaslighting! Thank you for clarifying.

12k a year - gets really depressing when you realize how many years it takes to buy a house, and in America how many years a small medical event costs you.

Yeah, it's really not much at all... Our government actually recently set up this thing where they'll cover the cost of a house for young working people, but even then it's really tough to buy. I don't want to buy anytime soon, but still, it's a real struggle for lots of people.
Sucks on the healthcare in America. Hope you guys get something worked out over there... :C

IKR? It's not hard. Whoever posted this without accounting for the inflation since 1950 really just told everyone he has no try in him.

You're right. I should have just tried harder to be wealthy but I couldn't afford to buy the bootstraps to pull myself up with.
- If you think that's wealthy, that's just more indication of your mental blocks.
  
  I think it's wealthier than half the country. Far more than half, in fact. Because plenty of the people who aren't living paycheck-to-paycheck still want to do things like go out to eat a couple of times a month or buy the latest games just so their lives aren't totally miserable, so they aren't able to save up $5000 either.
  Congratulations on your privilege though.
Loser count go brrrrr

The number of people on lemmy who are apparently dirt poor and don’t comprehend money or the economy is ridiculous.

Anything short of declaring yourself a homeless disabled pensioner eating rats to survive will get hostile responses around here, and even then someone would claim rats are a luxury.

No, the downvotes are for being tone-deaf and contributing nothing of value to the conversation. Lots of us here are perfectly able to save that much and more, but that doesn't change the fact that far too many cannot.
- I'm a young man and I make about the average income in my country. I saved that much very easily in only 5 months. That's some value to the conversation, I'd say. Not to take away from the discussion of course, and I do apologize for being tone-deaf. I really just meant it as a throwaway comment, I don't know, didn't think much about it.
- Their comment responds directly to the claim in the OP.
  That you lack the reading comprehension to understand this is horrifying.
  
  What percentage of the population of the US can save $5000?
  
  56% of Americans have more than $5000 in savings excluding retirement funds such as 401k.
  
  Well that's weird, because well over half of Americans have less than $5000 in their savings accounts.
  Do they keep the rest in a mattress?
  
  Forbes paints a different picture if you simply take the average across the available generations (which is what I did) and I have the impression they would be far more accurate.
  https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/savings/average-american-savings/
  Also the Forbes data is more recent.
  
  if you simply take the average across the available generations (which is what I did)
  Bruh
  1−(.54+.52+.42+.29)/4 = 56%
  This assumes that there's the exact same number of people in each generation. There are not. If the above is what you did, then what you've calculated is the percentage of generations that have over 5k. Squid is talking about the percentage of people who have over 5k. Those are two different numbers.
  
  Thanks for providing a source, but I'm very skeptical of anybody using averages to represent this rather than the median. If you put 99 destitute and homeless people in a room along with Elon Musk the average net worth in that room is over 4 billion dollars, which to put it mildly does not reflect the reality of most people in the room.
  
  Doing this by savings brackets actually avoids this problem but I would agree in another scenario.
  If we exclude the top two savings brackets we arrive at 46% of Americans having over $5,000 and under $250,000 in savings outside a 401k.
  Im certain that is a higher percentage of Americans with $5,000 savings than in 1946!
  
  It certainly is higher than in 1946, but not as high as it should be relative to income or purchasing power, which I think is why the meme is effective. Assuming somebody else in this thread was correct when thy said $5k in 1946 is equivalent to $80k today that's a sixteen-fold difference, but I'm extremely skeptical that the average American is able to save 16x what his great-grandfather did, whereas the price of everything (housing, food, whatever) has increased far more. It isn't a healthy position for a developed society to be in, especially one without public healthcare. If I were an American and had only $5k in the bank I'd be terrified.
  
  Yes. Averages do paint different pictures than actual hard numbers. And yet the actual hard numbers show the reality of the situation, and that reality is that a lot less than 56% Americans have more than $5000 in savings because that has nothing to do with an average.
  
  Averages do paint different pictures than actual hard numbers
  That’s… not how this works.
  Try reading the article to see the breakdown of savings brackets by generations before you reply and demonstrate your ignorance.
  
  Breaking it down by generations still does not change the fact that a lot less than 56% of Americans have more than $5000 in their savings accounts. Maybe more of certain generations do, but that's not what you said.
I don't know about all that...
I just meant for it to be a factoid I guess, didn't think much about when I posted. When I saw all the notifications I was actually expecting to see people were as excited about potatoes as I am --- I made a post about it last night.
Lots of people do struggle, I think it's fair to point out how hard it is to save for some.