In a recent survey, 56 percent of Americans said they have less than $1,000 in their checking and savings accounts combined, Forbes reports. Nearly a quarter (24.8 percent) have less than $100 to their name. Meanwhile, 38 percent said they would pay less than their full credit card balance this month, and 11 percent said they would make the minimum payment—meaning they would likely be mired in debt for years and pay more in interest than they originally borrowed. It paints a daunting picture of the average American coming out of the spend-heavy holiday season: steeped in credit card debt, living paycheck-to-paycheck, at serious risk of financial ruin if the slightest thing goes wrong.

It's a reminder that, while the larger economy has steadily recovered from the Great Recession, the gains have not yet surfaced at the local level. Another study reports that just 65 of the 3,069 counties in the U.S. have fully recovered from the near-collapse in 2008. But it also speaks to the enduring effect of decades of wage stagnation, when many Americans' pay has not kept up with inflation and they have been left further and further behind.

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Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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