empty glass box says break glass in case of emergency (Photo: Shutterstock)

You might have seen the photo: It shows a mile-long line of cars on a New Jersey turnpike, one of the more well-off states. It's people waiting in line to get food from a food bank. The same scenes are being played out all over America, in California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Texas. These are people who up until mid-March had been gainfully employed, paying their taxes, making their monthly mortgage payments.

"This is where Americans are now, financially," said Commonwealth Executive Director Tim Flacke in a webinar on the future of emergency savings, hosted by TPSU, DCIIA and SPARK, that also included AARP' Senior Strategic Policy Advisor David John, and Christine Lange, Prudential Financial's head of retirement business management and customers solutions.

Recommended For You

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to asset-and-logo-licensing@alm.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

C.J. Marwitz

C.J. Marwitz is a writer and editor.