THEIR FAVORITE OPTION – 31% of 1,015 Americans surveyed in early April 2015 picked real estate as the best long-term investment today, the # 1 choice of the group.  25% of the people selected stocks as their top long-term choice, # 2 in the overall rankings (source: Gallup).

ALMOST NOTHING SAVED – 57% of more than 2,000 Americans surveyed (half retired and half working) have accumulated less than $25,000 for their retirement years (source: Employee Benefit Research Institute).

SHOULDA COULDA WOULDA – 68% of adults at least age 55 admit that they procrastinated before beginning their retirement planning (source: Financial Engines).

FIVE YEARS LATER – As of Friday 4/24/15, only 4 banks in the United States have failed YTD and required a bailout from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).  As of the same date in 2010, 57 banks had failed YTD (source: FDIC).

NO FANCY DEGREE – 20 current members of the US House of Representatives (out of 435 members in the House) have no educational degree beyond a high school diploma (source: Congressional Research Service).

THEIR BREAKPOINT – It costs oil producers in Saudi Arabia (OPEC’s largest member) just $6 a barrel to bring oil up out of the ground (source: The Economist).

NOT LIKELY – The Fed Funds futures market was priced in December 2014 to reflect a greater than 50% chance of a rate hike by the Fed no later than June 2015.  The Fed Funds futures market was priced on 4/20/15 (i.e., 1 week ago) to reflect a 2% chance of a rate hike by the Fed no later than June 2015 (source: Federal Reserve).

PLAYING GAMES – The US debt ceiling was suspended for 13 months by Congress on 2/10/14 until 3/15/15.  The total of our nation’s outstanding debt as of 3/15/15 (i.e., $18.152 trillion) became the new debt ceiling limit.  In the 6 weeks since 3/15/15, the Treasury Department has initiated accounting maneuvers to delay (by 4-6 months) an actual default by the US government (source: Treasury Department).

CREDITORS – Total outstanding US government debt as of 2/28/15 was $18.2 trillion, comprised of $13.1 trillion held by investors (known as “debt held by the public”) and $5.1 trillion held by US government entities (e.g., the Social Security Trust Fund).  47% of the $13.1 trillion is held by non-US citizens.  Japanese investors hold 9.4% of the $13.1 trillion (i.e., $1.2 trillion), just fractionally more than the Treasury debt held by Chinese investors (source: Treasury Department).

MEDICAID – 22.1% of the budget of an average US state is for Medicaid expenditures.  Medicaid is a health care program for low-income Americans that is jointly funded by the federal government and US states but management of the program is the states’ responsibility alone (source: Pew Charitable Trusts).

PAYING TAXES IN 2014 – The top 1% of US taxpayers from tax year 2014 (i.e., returns filed in 2015) are expected to pay 45.7% of all federal income tax collected by the IRS this year, up from 43% in tax year 2013.  The bottom 60% of taxpayers are estimated to pay less than 3% of federal income taxes for tax year 2014 (source: Tax Policy Center).

TOO FEW BABIES – The nation’s “general fertility rate” (defined as the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15-44) fell to 62.5 births in 2013, the lowest number ever recorded in the USA.  There were 3.93 million births in the US in calendar year 2013, the 6th consecutive year that the number of live births has decreased nationwide (source: National Center for Health Statistics).

IT’S IN THE NUMBERS – 4 of the top 6 jobs in the USA in 2015 are math-oriented.  The # 1 ranked-job is an actuary, # 3 is a mathematician, # 4 is a statistician and # 6 is a data scientist (source: CareerCast).

May 2, 2016

 

Source: AIF, LLC

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