You can’t talk about money in this world without talking about the social/political makeup of this country. According to Empower, 37% of Americans cannot afford an emergency cost over $400. Let’s think about that for a second. Just over a third of Americans cannot afford a $400 unexpected expense. Here are some more stats from that same article. Over half of Americans stress over how to pay for emergencies. About a third of Americans keep their emergency savings in cash and only about a third of those Americans are looking into using a High Yield Savings Account (HYSA) to house their savings and let it grow with the interest. 

Our Political System is Broken

Our entire system is broken. It is built to promote suffering among the majority of Americans. One of my favorite tiktok creators, Delaware Realtor Zach, talks about this stuff a lot, and I highly recommend you check him out. While he does talk a lot about housing, he also talks about the political/financial system and how it broke down over time. He shows up with all of the receipts. 

Our two party system isn’t working, and we don’t actually have enough representatives for the size of our population. Part of the system not working as intended by our founding fathers is how our politicians are bought by corporations to bend laws into their wellbeing and out of your wellbeing. Corporations that get angry when consumers actually exercise their prerogative to not spend money at companies that don’t align with their values. This is evidenced when companies complained loudly at the consumers who chose not to spend their money on businesses who got rid of DEI initiatives, or businesses that supported Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. 

Work Requirements and Savings Caps are Inumane

The system is built to keep the majority of us poor, and fatally reliant on a job. Medicaid’s income cap is much too low to keep up with today’s cost of living, leaving many Americans with too much income for Medicaid but not enough income to sufficiently cover their healthcare expenses. Not only that, but their savings cap is barbaric in this economy. Honestly it was always barbaric. The only thing a savings cap of $2000 does, is keep poor people poor. 

That is not even enough to cover the recommended 3-6 months worth of emergency savings in the event of a job loss. So when someone loses their job, they then need Medicaid, SNAP, and rent assistance. They would then potentially also need assistance with their electricity, gas, and water bills. 

Even if a person has a job, the health insurance they receive from their job likely also perpetuates their inability to save money or receive proper medical care. If 37% of Americans cannot cover a $400 unexpected expense, how in the world are our government officials making these laws expecting Americans to be able to cover their health insurance deductibles and copays over the year, let alone cover every other possible emergency expense that can happen in a year (like a flat tire or a broken tooth).

Exercise All of Your Constitutional Rights

I know politics are exhausting to pay attention to, and they do that on purpose. But to preserve our rights and build a better country where there is truly liberty and justice for all, we need to build community and pay attention to what our politicians are doing. We need to vote – that is one of the most important things a US citizen can do for our country.

We could get into ranked choice voting, which would be significantly better than our current system where you have to choose only one politician for each office you are voting for, but we need reform in our whole system before we can even get there. That starts with everyone exercising their rights to vote, to peacefully assemble, and to free speech.