DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TIME AND ENERGY IT TAKES TO REFUTE HER CLAIMS? PROBABLY ENOUGH TO PAY FOR HER GREEN NEW DEAL. AOC’s Baseless Accusation that the U.S. is a “Brutal, Barbarian Society” Needless to say, read it all.

The statistic cited by AOC stems from an annual Federal Reserve study of people’s “self-reported ability to handle unexpected expenses.” Contrary to her claim that “40% of us couldn’t even afford a $400 emergency,” the survey actually finds that 12% of U.S. residents fall into that category. Furthermore, the facts surrounding this 12% figure reveal that it overstates the portion of people who can’t afford such an expense.

Per the Federal Reserve’s report on this issue, “if faced with an unexpected expense of $400”:

61% “of adults say they would cover it with cash, savings, or a credit card paid off at the next statement.”

27% say they “would borrow or sell something to pay for the expense.”12% say “would not be able to cover the expense at all.”

12% say “would not be able to cover the expense at all.”

Hence, AOC’s figure of “40%” includes people who would place the expense on a credit card and not pay it off right away. This is materially different from her claim that they “couldn’t even afford” it.

Moreover, the same report notes that another survey found 76% “of households had $400 in liquid assets (even after taking monthly expenses into account).” In other words, it’s not that they “couldn’t” immediately pay for an unexpected $400 expense; they just preferred not to do so. Given that 40% of U.S. residents carry a credit card balance “most or all of the time,” the “$40%–$400” statistic says little beyond that.