Nearly 50 percent of Americans Can't Come Up with $2,000

The Atlantic Wire is covering a recent National Bureau of Economic Research report that finds a staggering 49.9 percent of Americans would “probably” or “certainly” not be able to come up with $2,000 in cash should an immediate need arise.

When researchers from the George Washington School of Business, Princeton University, and Harvard Business School asked survey participants whether they would be able to come up with $2,000 for an “unexpected expense in the next month,” 22.2 percent predicted they would be “probably unable” and 27.9 percent said they’d certainly be unable to foot the unplanned bill.

Drilling down further on the hypothetical, nearly 19 percent of all respondents – including the 50 percent answering some variation of “unable” — noted that they would only be able to come up with the money by taking extreme measures, such as taking out payday loans and pawning or selling possessions.