Nearly half of Americans have $500 or less in their savings accounts, an amount that leaves them vulnerable to unexpected expenses, according to a GOBankingRates survey of 1,063 U.S. adults conducted in November 2023.

About 29% of respondents have between $501 and $5,000 in their savings accounts, while the remaining 21% of Americans have $5,001 or more.

Few hold much cash in their checking accounts as well. Of those surveyed, 60% report having $500 or less in their checking accounts, while only about 12% have $2,001 or more.

The lack of cash in either savings or checking accounts suggests that many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. This leaves them vulnerable to unexpected expenses, underscoring the importance of having an emergency fund, if they’re able to build one.

Financial planners commonly recommend keeping a reserve of cash, known as an emergency fund, on hand to cover unexpected expenses. Yet many Americans don’t seem to have one.

There are many reasons for this. In some cases, Americans may struggle to make ends meet during times of high inflation. But in others, it may be a matter of affluent professionals who aren’t in the habit of saving money.

“The inability of Americans to withstand an emergency costing $500 or even $1,000 can be financially detrimental, with a domino effect on their life,” says Alex Lozano, a certified financial planner and founder of Lozano Group Wealth Management.

That’s because people often rely on high-interest credit cards to cover unexpected expenses, he says.

“Accumulating debt can lead to a cycle of repayment and interest charges that can be difficult to escape,” says Christopher Lazzaro, chartered financial consultant and founder of Plan For It Financial. “An emergency fund helps you avoid falling into this debt trap.”

Lazzaro recommends aiming to build an emergency fund that’s worth three to six months of your expenses, although “everyone’s situation is going to be different.” Someone who is single or with a non-working spouse might want to save up 12 months worth of expenses, he says.

To get started, you’ll need to find room in your budget for monthly emergency savings contributions, which can be easier said than done.

If you aren’t able to cut back on your day-to-day expenses, it may make sense for you to temporarily reduce any contributions to retirement accounts. “Before people begin to invest for their future, they should create an emergency account,” says Lozano.

It’s OK to start small, too, even if that’s putting away only $20 per month. What’s important is that you get in the habit of making regular contributions, which can be increased later when you have more income.

Once you’ve carved out some of your monthly income to build up an emergency fund, it can be smart to stash it in a high-yield savings account where it will collect interest and can be withdrawn quickly in case of an emergency. Currently, you can find high-yield savings accounts with annual percentage yields close to 4.5%, compared with an average of 0.6% for all savings accounts, per Bankrate.

And yet, only 9.8% of survey respondents say they have a high-yield savings account, GOBankingRates found.

One reason people don’t switch over, despite the better rates, is inertia, since many already have a traditional savings account with the bank they’ve been with for years.

But the higher interest rates might be worth the switch. For a $500 balance in a high-yield account offering 4.5%, that works out to $22.50 in interest after one year, compared with just $3 with a traditional savings account.

While that might not seem like a lot of money at first, it will continue to grow over time, especially if you build up your emergency fund to cover many months worth of expenses.

Ohio secretary of state orders removal of non-citizens from state v**er rolls
https://ground.news/article/86810455-b665-407d-8b51-1e1b0f5b198c?emailIdentifier=burstYourBubble&edition=May-16-2024&token=8b63cbcd-1cde-49be-a2b4-04ad650d87b4&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=burst-your-bubble

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) ordered the removal of non-citizens from the state’s v**er rolls after more than 100 were found registered despite confirming their lack of U.S. citizenship.

On Tuesday, LaRose directed all 88 counties to begin a removal process for non-citizens on Ohio’s v**er rolls following a review by his office’s Public Integrity Division and Office of Data Analytics and Archives. The review analyzed data from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) and found 137 v***r r**********ns of non-citizens who had twice confirmed their lack of U.S. citizenship.

State law requires non-citizens to confirm to the BMV twice that they are not U.S. citizens. The secretary of state’s office will send two notices to the Ohio residents to either cancel their v***r r**********n or confirm their U.S. citizenship. If they do not respond to the notices, then they will be removed from the state v**er rolls.

“It’s important to recognize that some of these registrations may be the result of an honest mistake,” LaRose said in a statement. “These may be well-meaning people trying to pursue the American dream, and communication barriers sometimes result in a registration form being submitted in error. We need to help them get that cleared up before an accidental registration becomes an illegal v**e that could result in a felony conviction or even deportation.”

LaRose’s office also asked the Biden administration to provide citizenship data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ SAVE database, federal district court records, and databases from the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration.

Really? Which selective enforcement of laws?? What destruction of the free press as Democrats censor free speech? What history did Trump eradicate as Democrat supporters topple statues of historical figures?? And there is that word again - Hitleresque! Are you going to respond as Liberal Lilly again? Yeah right Trump is not a loved man as thousands show up at his rallies cheering him on even in blue states!! Your rants of bold face lies get more ludicrous the more you post!! You are a rabid socialist c*******t and all your posts prove that fact!!

Yup - once again you make a complete fool of yourself calling these experimental drugs 'v*****es'! Once again you make a complete fool of yourself by totally ignoring the FACT that F***i said this v***s was no threat to the US!! Once again you make a complete fool of yourself by ignoring the fact that Obama illegally sent US troops into Syria and we had no legal right to even be there! Protocols? You mean his illegal protocol forcing all Federal workers to get shots of these experimental drugs!!

Gun rights groups say New Mexico's 7-day waiting period to purchase a firearm violates the Constitution

A conservative legal group and gun rights activists have teamed up to challenge a newly-enacted seven-day waiting period to buy a gun in New Mexico.

The Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) has partnered with the National Rifle Association (NRA) in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that claims New Mexico is denying citizens their Second Amendment rights and their natural right to self-defense. The groups allege in court documents that the waiting period law passed by the Democratic-controlled legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is unconstitutional.

"This arbitrary law is just the latest attempt by Governor Grisham and her anti-gun comrades in the New Mexico legislature to limit the Second Amendment rights of their law-abiding constituents," said Mike McCoy, director of the Center to Keep and Bear Arms at MSLF.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico names Grisham and New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D) as defendants.

Grisham signed House Bill 129 into law in March, and it went into effect on Wednesday, enacting a mandatory seven-day waiting period for the purchase of firearms. During this time, sellers are required to conduct a federal instant background check of the buyer. Should the background check take longer than seven days, the seller must wait to t***sfer the firearm to the purchaser until the background check is completed.

Violators would be found guilty of a misdemeanor, according to the New Mexico Department of Public Safety.

"This legislation strikes at the heart of issues that are keeping New Mexicans up at night," Grisham said in a statement after signing the bill. "We are losing far too many lives when guns get into the wrong hands and violent criminals are allowed to recommit again and again. This legislation addresses both."

In court documents, plaintiffs Paul Samuel Ortega and Rebecca Scott, both residents of New Mexico, assert the Waiting Period Act "burdens the right to keep and bear arms." Plaintiffs also claim the state government "could never meet its burden to establish a historical analogue to justify its regulation."

The lawsuit references the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which established a new standard to determine whether a gun restriction is unconstitutional. To meet that standard, the government must show there is a "historical tradition of firearm regulation" that supports the sort of law in question.

Since Bruen, a multitude of federal and state gun control measures have been challenged in courts with mixed results.

"The Second Amendment protects a private right of individuals to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense; but this ridiculous waiting period law delays the ability of law-abiding citizens to exercise this God-given right," McCoy told Fox News Digital.

"Forcing domestic violence victims in need of a firearm to protect themselves to wait seven days to acquire one is wrong, and let's hope their abusers 'wait a week' too before they attack again," he added.

"The NRA is proud to team up with the Mountain States Legal Foundation to challenge New Mexico’s waiting period law," said Randy Kozuch, Executive Director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action. "This new law is a clear violation of the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding New Mexicans, and the NRA is committed to seeing that this unconstitutional law be wiped from the state statutes."

The MSLF stated that plaintiffs "seek nothing short of a complete invalidation of the law by the federal courts, and a return to constitutional sensibility."

The offices of the governor and the attorney general did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nra-conservative-legal-group-sue-democrat-governor-7-day-waiting-period-buy-guns

Since Biden Inherited The Trump Boom, The Whole Economy’s Gone Bust

Now that the easy-growth environment of the post-C***d era is well behind us, Biden — and the country — face a terrible economic reckoning.

For years, President Joe Biden was flying west to east with the prevailing winds, economically speaking. During C***d, politicians (primarily Democrats) closed down large portions of the economy. When C***d ended, the economy “grew” because that’s what happens when you go from a partially closed economy to an entirely open one.

Why economists fail to recognize this easy-growth environment is befuddling. Now, in rapid succession, we have a weak GDP report, poor jobs and unemployment reports, another terrible fiscal report, and more awful inflation reports. Horrible data that even the pro-Biden media can’t cover up.

The t***h is that Biden’s economic numbers were never any good. And now that the easy-growth environment of the post-C***d era is well behind us, Biden — and the country — face a terrible economic reckoning.
Before C***d, U.S. GDP reached $20.95 trillion and the Trump administration was achieving real GDP growth of about 2.8 percent annually. Had that rate of growth continued, it would today yield a real GDP of $23.56 trillion. The United States is not close to that number. In fact, first-quarter 2024 GDP reflects annual growth of less than 2 percent from the pre-C***d GDP.

Now, if the U.S. economic situation had deteriorated in 2020 because of long-term fundamental weaknesses, Biden’s so-called “growth” might not look so bad. But that is not what happened. Politicians artificially closed down a strong economy.

When the economy reopened, competent leadership would have gotten us quickly back to where we should have been all along. Instead, we got Biden and people like Jared Bernstein — Biden’s music major-turned-chief economic-adviser who literally has no idea what he’s talking about.

As it turns out, the Trump administration did most of the heavy lifting during the C***d recovery. From the depths of the C***d crisis (Q2 2020) through the end of Trump’s term, real GDP rose by about $1.69 trillion in just six months. Under Biden, GDP has grown by about $2 trillion. But that took Biden 39 months.

Real GDP does not tell the whole story because it is adjusted for inflation but not population growth. All things being equal, a society of 11 people should have a higher GDP than a society of 10. Under the Trump recovery, real per capita GDP increased by $5,028 in just six months. Under Biden, per capita GDP has increased by about the same amount ($5,291) in three-plus years. The Trump administration added $2,514 per quarter back to real per capita GDP compared to Biden’s $407 per quarter — six times stronger performance.

One might argue that Trump benefited as well from the same easy-growth environment during this period. Not so. Many of the government-enforced business closures and restrictions remained in place throughout 2020, the end of Trump’s term.

Moreover, C***d v*****es — a catalyst for much of the “return to normalcy,” particularly in Democrat-controlled localities — did not become widely available until well into 2021. Thus, Trump began rebuilding GDP even while the economy remained partially closed. By contrast, Biden has benefitted from an entirely open economy for several years. In any event, even if both men received the benefit of reopenings, Trump took advantage of it and outperformed Biden six to one.

Under Biden, cumulative inflation is 20 percent. Everyone is aware of the painfully high prices for everything. The Biden administration and its media allies have facially done a better job hiding myriad other distressing economic realities. I say “facially” because Americans nonetheless intuitively understand that the Biden economy is awful.
Employment has been bad for more than a year. Last year at this time, 134.4 million Americans had full-time jobs. That number has dropped to 133.9 million. A declining full-time workforce is not a sign of a healthy economy.

Moreover, the true employment level has always been masked by poor labor force participation data under Biden. Labor participation is an important number because it measures the percentage of Americans who are working. By contrast, the unemployment rate does not measure the percentage of Americans actually unemployed because it excludes from its calculation unemployed people who are no longer looking for work.

Labor force participation was trending upward under Trump before lockdowns. And, post-lockdowns, the Trump administration added 1.4 percent back to labor participation in just eight months. The Biden administration has added just 1.2 percent back to labor participation over the last 39 months. Labor participation still hasn’t fully recovered under Biden and remains below its pre-lockdown level. In fact, labor participation has actually declined under Biden over the last eight months.

According to court data, total bankruptcy filings increased by 16.8 percent in 2023. Business bankruptcies increased by a whopping 40 percent. Similar increases in U.S. bankruptcy filings were reported again in the first quarter of 2024.

Over the last year, six major U.S. banks have failed. In t***h, bank failures are not that uncommon. However, the Biden bank failures are unique. By asset size, three of the four largest bank failures in U.S. history — Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic Bank, and Signature Bank — have occurred in just the last year. For context, according to a Forbes analysis, the 157 banks that failed in 2010 due to the mortgage crisis combined had less than one-half the assets of either Silicon Valley Bank or First Republic Bank alone.

Even the GDP numbers that Biden touts have, in reality, been rocky and poor for quite some time. Over the last nine calendar quarters, the United States has experienced two quarters of negative growth (-2.0 percent, -0.6 percent), the most recent quarter of poor growth (1.6 percent), and four additional quarters below the Trump pre-lockdown average of 2.8 percent.

Average annualized growth under Biden across all of the last nine quarters has been an anemic 1.9 percent. That is low. But it is astonishingly low in an economy that moved from partially closed to entirely open.
At the same time Biden was wrecking the economy, he was also wrecking our available solutions to economic problems. The United States has a consumer economy. It depends on consumer spending to thrive. Because of Biden, consumers do not have money to spend.

Real median household income has dropped under Biden from $76,600 to $74,580, according to the most recent data. For context, under Trump, median household income increased from $70,840 to $76,660, and that includes the worst C***d period. During his so-called “recovery,” Biden took $2,020 out of American paychecks. Americans no longer earn enough to spend our way out of a bad economy.

Before lockdowns, personal savings in the U.S. increased each year under Trump from $746 billion in 2016 to $1.2 trillion in 2019. Personal savings peaked at $2.7 trillion in 2020 during lockdowns. Under Biden, savings have plummeted below pre-lockdown levels to $911 billion as Americans have tried to keep up with inflation. Americans no longer have enough savings to spend our way out of a bad economy.

Under Biden, credit card debt skyrocketed from $717 billion in 2021 to $1.13 trillion in 2023. In December 2023, credit card delinquency rates hit their highest level in over a decade. Under Biden, interest rates on credit cards, auto loans, and home mortgages have hovered at decades-long highs.

This means people are paying more in the future for things that they already purchased in the past, leaving them with less for future consumption. Americans no longer have enough credit to spend our way out of a bad economy.
The savings and debt trends are problematic not only going forward but also looking back. They show that Biden’s growth numbers — as lackluster as they are — were artificially supported by draining savings and racking up debt. Stealing from the future is not a healthy way to maintain short-term economic “growth.”

Even the left’s preferred, albeit usually wrongheaded and always misapplied, Keynesian solution — i.e., government deficit spending — is off the table. Put aside that this is one of the things that put us in this inflationary predicament in the first place. Further, put aside that three additional American generations now know this to be true based on lived experience. The fact is that, in just three years, Biden has incurred more national debt than any other president has incurred in four full years in office.

To compound matters, interest rates on the federal debt — like all other interest rates — have skyrocketed with Bidenflation. This year, simply paying interest on the debt will surpass national defense as the government’s third-largest spending program. The government can no longer spend our way out of a bad economy even in a Keynesian fantasyland.

The next president will be flying east to west into severe Bidenomics headwinds.