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Meet the Average American Family (Infographic)
- sophacles 17y agoWow. This is kinda... woah. I recently began an overhaul of my financial situation, because I thought I could be doing better. I am way better off then the best possible combination from this sheet -- I can't imagine being in that situation. :-/
- jazzychad 17y agoI love how when you click the image, it takes you to a smaller version! Here is a link to a much bigger and more readable version: http://c1334262.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/average-american-family.jpg http://c1334262.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/average-am...
- teye 17y agoNot a very attractive infographic. For relief, see http://feltron.com http://feltron.com.
- jacquesm 17y agoDoes the household debt include the debt to the bank on the house? I can't stand infographics btw.
- feverishaaron 17y agoYes, I believe it does.
- electromagnetic 17y agoFrom what I gathered it does, which whilst is technically a debt it shouldn't be classified nearly the same as an outstanding balance on a credit card. That's like treating a fresh steak the same as a can of corned beef. Yes it's beef, but one will last a few hours sat on the counter and the other will last god only knows how long (I've yet to see a can with a best before date). In general a mortgage is a pro, it's going to cost you but in the long run you've got a good chance of breaking even or even profiting. I know my parents bought their house for 75,000GBP and sold it for 250,000GBP in the space of 15 years, because of their mortgage agreement they were paying low rates for the longest of times. Right now is the ideal time for mortgages when the banks are offering lower rates, but the house values have little choice but to go up from now, giving you a major boost to your equity at the reevaluation and possibly giving you a rate drop due to the added collateral with no effort. Edit: It's worth noting that a $1000 mortgage is a shitload better than $1000 in rent.
- icefox 17y ago"house values have little choice but to go up" [citation needed]
- pchristensen 17y agoIt's a savvier statement than it seems on the surface. Topography, water supply, and especially zoning prevent housing supply from meeting demand in much of the country (hence high prices). Housing is temporarily down because both the economy and the mortgage money supply are readjusting. But for pretty much every place where median house price > (3*median household income), it can handle a lot of economic collapse before housing prices stay down.
- icefox 17y ago
- maukdaddy 17y agoOriginal source: http://www.visualeconomics.com/the-american-familys-financial-turmoil_2010-04-29/ http://www.visualeconomics.com/the-american-familys-financia...
- acangiano 17y agoGood, now let's meet the Median American Family.
- Qz 17y agoThe language is leaving you behind on that one.
- cloudkj 17y agoHear hear. Also, these statistics are nowhere near the average income tax statistics I saw when I finished my tax returns on Turbo Tax this year. The average income is much, much higher as are some of the other categories (capital gains, etc). I guess there's a big difference between the tax-filing average American family and the overall average?
- blueben 17y agoIs Turbo Tax's data from all Americans, or just their customer base?
- mattmaroon 17y agoI did a bit of Googling and I'm pretty convinced that some of the numbers are medians and some are means. What'd be really interesting is a direct side by side of both (perhaps even doing an RP 10% in a third column.) I might Mechanical Turk that, it'd be worth a few bucks to see.
- seb 17y agoHere you go: A bit old the data, but still interesting. Net Worth and the Assets of Households 2002: http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p70-115.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p70-115.pdf
- brg 17y agoI believe this is a content-free presentation. It seems obvious that many of the facts presented are meaningless or are not provided in a proper context. "$117,951 average debt" includes home mortgage. The poster states 95k of this is in mortgage and 2.2k in credit cards, but not where the other 20k is located. "25% of people have no savings", while over 25% of the population is children. "40% of working Americans are not saving for retirement", taking into account that working Americans include those between 18 and 35, I would say that is in line with expectation. We are not told if this counts those with pension funds payments from their employer. "24% workers who have postponed their retirement age in the past year," which population is this a sample of? Are they only counting those whose retirement is imminent?
- jfarmer 17y agoI agree the "average debt" is a silly, but I assumed "25% have no savings at all" (note: it does not say "25% of people") meant "25% of working Americans," a continuation of the line item right above it.
- brg 17y agoYou may be correct, the lack of conjunction and my reading left to right, top to bottom conspired to introduce ambiguity in my interpretation.
- cynicalkane 17y agoIf it were possible to slap a [citation needed] on other peoples' infographics, this is when you would want to do it. In addition to the context-free nature of the 'facts' provided, I have a suspicion that at least some of them are outright wrong. (And if they were right, I'd want to know more. I'm sick of this culture where information exists in the form of blurbs, factoids and opinions.)
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- RK 17y ago"$117,951 average debt" includes home mortgage. The poster states 95k of this is in mortgage and 2.2k in credit cards, but not where the other 20k is located. Cars?
- tome 17y agoThey seem to think the United Kingdom is called "England".
- whakojacko 17y agoIf you look at the GDPs, it seems that they area actually talking about England-Google tells me $2.67T for UK, $2.13T for England alone. Its more like they seem to think that England's flag is the UK's flag-But honestly, most Americans probably wouldnt be able to tell you what England's flag looks like anyways (they would say the UK flag)
- petercooper 17y agoBut honestly, most Americans probably wouldnt be able to tell you what England's flag looks like anyways (they would say the UK flag) I suspect most English people would struggle with it too if it wasn't hijacked by xenophobes and soccer nuts.
- mattmaroon 17y agoVery cool but not as informative as it might appear in some ways. From what I can gather (by Googling a bit to find the stats he's using) he seems to be using a mix of means and medians and they're coming from different sources and different years. This isn't the best idea, but might be unavoidable. Despite being the most prosperous nation in history, that chart would make us look destitute. Using different forms of averages hides an extremely significant factor: our income gap. While good by world standards, it's poor-to-mediocre by developed nation standards and getting worse. I'd argue it's the biggest threat to our long-term stability because it compounds all of the others, but I suppose that's getting off-topic.
- listic 17y agoJust for your information, this might not bear much meaning to people outside USA. I'm a Russian guy and it is mostly gibberish to me. No saving for retirement? No mutual funds, stock or bonds? Is it supposed to be striking or what? Also: less than 4/10 of American adults have an emergency fund to fall back on. This is still pretty big fraction of prudent people if you ask me, isn't it?
- Tichy 17y agoWhat happens to Russians who retire?
- listic 17y agoThey get pension, which is funded from the taxes they presumably paid while they were working (if they were not working, they will still get some). Just like it is in other countries, I suppose.
- Tichy 17y agoAnd nobody ever considers to save any money on the side? Or which parts of the "infographic" were confusing to you?
- listic 17y agoI guess some do consider; don't know how many. But if you say that 40% don't save for retirement I just have no idea if it is supposed to be unusual or perfectly normal. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised with any number up to 80%; I suspect most people are reckless and not forward-thinking (judging by myself maybe - I am reckless young man) And - is it supposed to be some special kind of saving scheme that you use for retirement? The same goes for mutual funds, stock, bonds and. Are all people supposed to have them? Or bank accounts, even. Sure, most people have them now, but some don't. 7% or 16% looks ok to me. I wanted to communicate that I (and probably many other people) have no frame of reference to relate the information in this infographic to, while the it implies that anyone does. Well, maybe this is not a good infographic after all.
- nrao123 17y agoSmall detail but neverthless annoying while comparing a stock & a flow. "2 Trillion of Debt is more than GDP of England" Its like I am saying I am worth more than 1 year of your income. More here: http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/11/is-martin-wolf-.html http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/11/is-mar...
- mbrubeck 17y agoThe average American has one breast and one testicle.
- earl 17y agoActually, 0.97 testicle, 1.0 breast. http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/sex_ratio.html http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/sex_ratio.html
- madmaze 17y agothat is down right sad, how does a country like the US end up like that? i would love to see stats like this for europe or places like china
- mbrubeck 17y agoChina famously (among economists) has the highest national savings rate in the world - about 40-50% of GDP, compared to 10-15% for the US, 20% for Europe, and 25% for Japan. China has very different cultural expectations related to saving and spending. On the other hand, the US spends a higher percentage of GDP on education than most countries, which is a different form of investment in the future.