Just under 20% of American-Jewish households struggling to make ends meet

Nearly 20% of American Jews struggle to make ends meet, according to an analysis by Brandeis University published in November.

The analysis published by Brandeis University looked at 12 Jewish communities from across America representing over 1 million Jewish adults, nearly one-sixth of all Jewish Americans.

The main findings showed that 19% of Jewish Americans struggled to make ends meet, with 2% unable to at all and 17% "just managing" to make ends meet.

Two percent of Jewish households earned below the federal poverty level (FPL), and 11% were below 250% FPL.

Just over one in twenty, or 6%, of households said they could not cover a $400 emergency expense.

Widespread wealth inequality

Wealth inequality in the Jewish community is quite stark according to the analysis, with 6% of Jewish households saying they were "Not at all/Not too confident to afford basic living expenses"; however, this figure increased thirteen-fold to 81% when looking at poor households. In contrast, those dubbed as "managing" were at 17%, and the wealthier households were at <3%.

Retirement is also a place with significant inequality, with nearly 92% of "poor" Jews being unsure of their ability to retire. This inequality was more distributed throughout the classes, with "managing" at 71%, and even some of the wealthy were unsure of their retirement prospects, with 10% uncertain of retirement.

Jews showed strong attainment of college degrees, with 78% achieving a college degree or higher, and 86% of households holding at least one degree.

Although education was strongly correlated with financial success, it did not guarantee it.

Among poor households, 79% had a college degree or higher, while the wealthy had an average of 92% with a college degree or higher.

Poor households also had a lower employment rate than their wealthy counterparts. However, this was offset by the poor, employed households having the highest rate of multiple jobs at 13%.

They also had the highest rate of someone "not working for pay" at 30% and also the lowest rate of retirement at 7%, against the wealthy who had a retirement rate of 26% on average.