Are you financially comfortable? New research reveals that not too many of us are these days. According to a new Bankrate survey, Americans feel they would need to earn an average of $233-thousand a year to be secure or comfortable with their finances.
It would take about twice that much, roughly $438-thousand a year, for them to feel rich and have financial freedom. Both of those figures are a lot more than the average salary full-time workers made in 2021, which was $75,203, according to the Census Bureau.
The poll of just over 25-hundred U.S. adults also finds:
- Only 28% of Americans feel completely financially secure, and 26% don’t expect they’ll ever be.
- Economic factors have a big part in that, with 63% saying high inflation is keeping them from being financially secure, while 36% blame rising interest rates.
- Other factors keeping people from financial comfort include insufficient retirement funds (41%), high or revolving debt (26%) and renting instead of owning (25%).
- Men are more likely than women to say they’re completely financially secure (30% of men versus 26% of women.)
- On average, women feel they’d need more money than men to be comfortable. Women say they’d need to earn roughly $237-thousand a year to be comfortable and about $502-thousand a year to feel rich.
- Gen X is the least likely to feel financially secure, with just 19% saying they do, compared to 32% of baby boomers, 28% of millennials, and 25% of Gen Z.
Source: Bankrate