(HUFFINGTON POST) Nearly one in two Americans -- 46 percent -- die "with virtually no financial assets," or less than $10,000, according to a recent study by economics professors at MIT, Dartmouth and Harvard. In fact, 19 percent of Americans die with "zero" financial assets, the study found. (Hat tip:the Washington Post's Wonkblog.)
The study found that many of these people with modest assets rely "almost entirely" on Social Security benefits to survive, own no housing property, and are in poor health. People with zero financial assets and an annuity income of less than $30,000 were in the bottom health quartile before they died, while those in households with financial assets of at least $25,000 and an annuity income of $30,000 to $40,000 were in the 43rd health percentile before they died, according to the study.
Poorer Americans die younger, in part because they cannot pay for medical emergencies, according to the study. And before death, poorer Americans' quality of life is significantly lower than the quality of life of their richer counterparts.
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