Herald-Mail Forums > Financial Standing

Herald-Mail Forums > Opinion > Mail Call

Yossarian

Nov 6 2007, 08:24 AM

"The best way to give people a sense of where they stand is to lay out some data. Every three years the Federal Reserve Board conducts a national survey that tracks the financial health of American households.

If you and yours are bringing in $40,000 a year, you're doing better than half the households in America."

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting...Wealth-Spectrum

This isn't a question to see where our posters are financially, I'm just throwing this out for informational purposes.

jelsey

Nov 6 2007, 10:02 AM

Well, I'm doing better than most it appears, and I'm struggling.

I'll just be thankful for what I have, and keep on keepin' on.

christine_dixon

Nov 6 2007, 10:14 AM

i feel fortunate every time i see statistics like that. i do have a question, though... if so many americans are STRUGGLING, and STILL doing better than more than half the country, why are the poverty threshholds so low?

QUOTE

Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold is adjusted each year. In 2006, the poverty threshold for a single person under 65 was $10,488; the threshold for a family group of four, including two children, was $20,444.

Snoopy

Nov 6 2007, 12:01 PM

Poverty is relative. In the US, if you're single, make < 10K, you will pay no taxes, get lots of different financial and other help, and may well be overweight. That is different than poverty in Mexico and many other countries.

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