Why it’s Time for Emergency Fund 401(k)s
A lot has been written about America’s retirement crisis (some of it by Next Avenue). But I don’t think there’s been enough attention given to America’s emergency fund crisis. And I think it’s about time employers step up to help with this problem by offering the equivalent of an emergency fund 401(k), maybe with some assistance from President Trump. The numbers are painfully urgent: Nearly half of U.S. households lack a basic personal safety net to prepare for emergencies and 140 million Americans have little or no savings at all, according to a recent CFED study. In a Federal Reserve survey, 46% of Americans said they’d have difficulty with an emergency expense of $400.
