What percent of families are asset poor-lack sufficient resources to live at the poverty line for three months -and why does asset poverty matter? A third of U.S. families are liquid asset poor and these families are disproportionately minority, young, and low-income. A lack of assets threatens families' ability to weather adverse events. After experiencing an involuntary job loss, asset-poor families are nearly three times more likely to experience hardship than non-asset-poor families. These large differences exist across the income spectrum-for low-, middle-, and