Don’t be overwhelmed by this response. I recently learned that the 1000 bucks thing is mostly based on Bankrates annual survey and it’s not actually true that they don’t have access to 1k, so this is a little bit an exploration.

> American households, on average, have $41,600 in savings, according to data last collected by the Federal Reserve in 2019.

And that’s before the free money era and the explosion of wealth from rising interest rates. Of course it’s also true that inflation could be taking a bite out of household wealth.

https://time.com/personal-finance/article/average-american-s....

People may not have enough saved for retirement, but that’s a separate issue.

The surveys of people not having cash on hand to handle a 1000 emergency or whatnot? That really has to do with your phase of life and economic conditions, and interestingly has been a relatively stable number even as inflation has increased.

It’s also really important to understand that they are based on unverified phone surveys about how people feel they are doing. Consider that they are asking people whether they could cover a one time expense, a month of expenses or three months of expenses. But they don’t ask whether people have access to money. The survey reports that “More than 2 in 3 Americans *would be worried* about having enough emergency savings to cover a month’s worth of living expenses,” so something to bear in mind.

https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/emergency-savings-r...