62% of Americans have less than 1000 in their savings accounts. Half of the US cannot afford to invest in the stock market, and half of all Americans could not afford a 500 dollar emergency. This has to change. People need to be taught how to save money the best they can, even if their income is low. In that case, expenses need to be brought down. Every person should be required by senior year of high school to open a ROTH or traditional IRA account and taught the value of good saving and investing over the long run. Play around with a compounding interest calculator sometime. It's fascinating. Saving just 2000 dollars a year for 40 years would yield 1 million dollars with a 10 percent annual return. If every US citizen knew this, everyone would be rich.
