Hi. I agree most people here are out of touch. While I am no longer in such a desperate situation, I was once in a few of them. I resolved to, and ultimate work

Hi. I agree most people here are out of touch. While I am no longer in such a desperate situation, I was once in a few of them. I resolved to, and ultimate worked for and sold a financial product to help people with many of the problems they now face (sort of not making enough money or being in a debt spiral, but give me a few years to amass capital and I can try that too). I assure you, I have excellent data we use to help understand what features our customers need and which features customers do not need. I share your frustration, but would like to provide some alternative narrative around this story for the benefit of the audience here. Consumers avoid savings accounts across the board of income. They do this because financial advisors, both public on TV and private, tell them to. Many lack liquidity at the scale of 4 figures, but even those that have that avoid them. They do this for a lot of reasons, but it's incorrect to imply that the only reason they do so is because they don't have a cash buffer. In fact, our data suggests a surprising number of people keep a cash buffer when they'd be much better served paying down credit card debt with that money (and of course, better still served by converting a large revolving debt to a more attractive fixed loan). Again, many reasons (e.g., protection from credit-related cash seizure) exist to justify this approach at all income levels. Stories like this exist to belittle younger generations and further the narrative that our nations financial decline is somehow tied to the imprudence of its younger and more vulnerable citizens. This could not be further from the case; the real story is one of outrageous wealth extraction from the young to the old without a hint of remorse or self-reflection. That story spans many financial domains and also places like property tax law and policies around public health care. Stories like this also exist to push the burden of innovation off of banks, who say, "No one uses these savings products so we should focus on spending products." The point, "Your savings tools are terrible" is seldom offered. Stories like this are solicited carefully, by highly paid people, to help avoid painful discussions like, "Should the savings account rate be locked to at least the rate of inflation?" that many people (including people at the CFPB) have raised. Just sayin', this article is not only a pile of garbage, but it's a meticulously crafted pile of garbage designed to tell a toxic narrative.