The article by CNBC which makes the claim that 56% can't afford a $1000 emergency expense, with the interpretation I mentioned: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19

The article by CNBC which makes the claim that 56% can't afford a $1000 emergency expense, with the interpretation I mentioned: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/56percent-of-americans-cant-cover-a-1000-emergency-expense-with-savings.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/56percent-of-americans-cant-... The source of their statistics, which has a separate section which clearly asks about how much savings people have (granted, in terms relative to their living expenses instead of absolute numbers), rather than pulling 56% out of the statistic about how they would pay for an expense: https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/emergency-savings-report/#credit-card-debt https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/emergency-savings-r... This finds that ~22% of Americans don't have emergency savings. Which is still a lot, but certainly not as crazy and eye catching as 56%. Note that the second link is the 2023 version, CNBC references the 2021 stats, but those don't seem to be accessible anymore (which is a strange arrangement).