If you had an unexpected bill for $400 — a medical expense or a car repair — could you pay for it with cash or a check?
Would you even blink an eye? Or would 400 bucks be a stretch or something you couldn’t pay at all?
A sweeping survey suggests about half of metro Atlanta residents couldn't pay for that $400 bill right away.
To break it down:
- About half in metro Atlanta could pay with cash, check or a debit card.
- About one out of five said they'd put it on a credit card.
- About one-third would have to borrow money, pawn or sell items, would be unable to pay or wouldn't know how to pay for that $400 emergency.
The data was released Friday by the Atlanta Regional Commission as part of its fourth annual Metro Atlanta Speaks survey.
The survey gauges metro residents' views on the region's biggest issues. Transportation and crime ranked as the top concerns, followed by the economy and education.
The survey produced by the ARC and the A.L. Burruss Institute of Public Service and Research at Kennesaw State University. The survey polled 5,416 people, with statistically significant tallies in 13 metro counties, plus the city of Atlanta. The ARC said it’s the largest survey of its kind in the greater Atlanta area.
The unexpected expense question came out of a report in The Atlantic, ARC Executive Director Doug Hooker said, and the ARC wanted to test to see if Atlanta provided similar results.
“It turns out we reflect the same types of national trends,” he said. “It’s shocking because I think a lot of us would think of $400 as an inconvenience, not as something threatening our family budgets. But this is telling us that for a large number of people taken together, $400 is a serious threat to a family’s budget. It is very sobering.”
To read more about this story and the survey, check out our subscriber website, MyAJC.com, or read Sunday's print edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
