According to a research conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, many Americans are running out of disposable cash and are on course to have less than they did before the COVID outbreak devastated the economy.
Research published Monday by the San Francisco Fed found that while the top 20% of households by income saw their liquid assets – including cash and funds in savings, checking and money market accounts – rise sharply in 2020 and early 2021, they dropped and are now about 2% below what would've been expected without the pandemic's impact.
Fox Business reports the trend is worse for the American households that represent the lowest 80% by income, who saw their assets rise less sharply and depleted their excess savings more quickly. That has left their liquid assets about 13% lower than the projected path of their finances before the pandemic.
That development comes as credit card delinquencies among middle- and low-income families rose earlier, faster and to "notably higher" rates than those of high-income families, the research found.
