Close-up of a car mechanic repairing a car in a garage

Why Do So Many Households Find It Difficult to Cover a $400 Emergency Expense?

July 15, 2019

Despite a strong economic recovery, about 40 percent of households in 2017 still said they would have trouble paying for a $400 unexpected expense. A recent study from the Center for Retirement Research uses data from two Federal Reserve surveys – the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED)and the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF)…

Hand putting mix coins and seed into 4 clear bottles that are increasing in number of coins and size of plants

It’s Becoming Clear, We Need to Increasing Precautionary Savings

MarketWatch Blog by Alicia H. Munnell

October 19, 2016

As many of you may know, several states – California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, and Oregon – are in the process of setting up retirement programs for their uncovered private sector workers. These programs consist of a mandate on employers without retirement plans to automatically enroll their workers in an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) and to…