Disastrous Financial State of American Households. Result of Unemployment, Low Wages (Source globalresearch.ca) A typical American household cannot raise $400 without borrowing money or selling possessions, according to the results of a survey published Friday by the Federal Reserve, the US central bank. The Fed’s Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2013 points to the precarious state of the majority of US households, who risk poverty or bankruptcy in the event of job loss, accident or unforeseen medical expense. According to the report, nearly two-thirds of those under 45 did not have funds set aside to cover their expenses for a three-month period. The survey helps expose the fictitious character of the economic “recovery,” which has supposedly been going on for five years. Seventy percent of respondents said they were no better off than they were in 2008, during the depth of the worst downturn since the Great Depression.