Aspen Institute director: Wealth is not a luxury, but three in four U.S. households don’t have enough

From the source

The Aspen Institute Financial Security Program has created the essential wealth metric as a new way to measure not only how much a family needs to pay the bills but also how much they need for full resilience, prosperity, and well-being. Our finding: Only 26% of U.S. households have essential wealth, the milestone at which families hold multiple appreciating assets—like a home and a retirement account—at levels that allow them to comfortably take risks and plan for the future. For a household in its 30s, for example, that means about $120,000 in net worth and six weeks of take-home pay in liquid savings. The largest chunk of households, however—43%—are stuck in the middle. There, families have net worth sufficient to cover three months of expenses at the federal poverty line, but fall short of the baseline for meaningful resilience and the foundation for growing prosperity. Practically, this means they don’t have enough to save for a down payment or have to choose between saving for…

BestAIBroker analysis

• Finance-aware sentiment: neutral (+0.00 on a -1 to +1 scale).
• Event classification: OTHER.
• Market importance score: 31/100, weighting entity relevance, source credibility, multi-outlet coverage and recency.