NATIONWIDE — A REPORT RELEASED by the Urban Institute on Tuesday found that more than half of all people in the United States (52%) are financially insecure and not poised to thrive, according to the National True Cost of Living Coalition, which sponsored the research. Roughly 58% of families with children — and 80% of single-parent families — are unable to get ahead, the report found. The study breaks new ground by factoring in a comprehensive set of costs and available resources, the Coalition said. Traditional measurements of economic need, including the federal Official Poverty Measure, fail to distinguish between what it costs for families to afford their most basic survival needs and what it costs for them to save enough for the future, buy a home or pay for emergency expenses. The report can be found at urban.org.
“Low-income and increasingly many middle-class Americans have been struggling financially for decades, but we have not had the right measure to account for it, leaving segments of our population and their struggles largely unseen,” David R. Jones, CEO of the Community Service Society of New York and co-chair of the Coalition, said in a release.
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