Roughly one-third of American households — 38 million — are living without a financial cushion, and many of them are considered wealthy, according to a study by university economists.

The study, "The Wealthy Hand-to-Mouth," by economists Greg Kaplan and Justin Weidner of Princeton University and Giovanni Violante of New York University, found that the country's poor households are not alone in their lack of liquid assets.

The paper showed that the wealthy living this way actually outnumber the poor, accounting for a staggering two-thirds of the total hand-to-mouth households in the U.S.

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.