The bad news: America's consumer society strikes again as a recent poll shows that a majority of households don't have enough money for a rainy day. The good news: this year's results were better than last year's.
Just 46% of Americans polled have an emergency savings fund equal to three months living expenses, according to a survey done by Bankrate.com, a rate data research company. But that beats last year's result of 39%.
At the same time, the number of households with no savings at all dropped to 18% in the recent survey, an improvement from last year's 23.5%.
"An inadequate savings cushion could spell big trouble in the event of a job loss or unexpected medical emergency," says Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com.
Other key findings in Bankrate's survey found that men are better savers than women (81% vs. 72%), men did a better job of putting money into emergency funds (53% vs. 39%) and men earn more interest on their savings (81% vs. 70%).
The phone survey of 1,005 adults was conducted for Bankrate by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media from June 29 through July 1, with a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.