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Why aren't Americans saving?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americans-are-more-confident-in-their-savings-for-the-first-time-in-six-years-2017-03-21?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo

This year, Americans say they’re ready to make their savings accounts great again. Whether they actually will is another story.

About 21% of working Americans aren’t saving any of their income, which remains unchanged from the answer consumers gave the survey in 2016, a survey released this week by personal finance site Bankrate.com concluded. And just 25% are saving more than 10% of their incomes, down from 28% in 2016. The Bankrate survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates from a nationally representative sample of more than 1,000 people.

What are the biggest reasons Americans aren’t saving more money? The No. 1 answer: 38% said they had too many expenses, some of which may not be under their control given that wages have remained stagnant in recent years. The next reason is absolutely under their control, however. Some 16.4% of the respondents simply said “they haven’t gotten around to it.” The third and fourth reasons? Just over 16% said they not having a good enough job and 13% said they were struggling under debt.Of course, living within one’s means is an important part of saving: About two-thirds of American adults don’t write out a budget at all and the same percentage of consumers say they would have trouble coming up with an emergency $2,000, according to the New York Federal Reserve in a new survey released Monday.


And those bills can be crippling: A majority of Americans (59%) don’t have enough available cash to pay for even a $1,000 emergency room bill or even a $500 car repair, according to separate data released in January by Bankrate. Indeed, some studies have suggested that medical bills are the No. 1 cause of personal bankruptcies and, that same month, the Republican-controlled Senate narrowly passed a budget resolution to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

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