SA households are getting poorer: a growing number of households will not be able to retire and will not be able to cope with emergency expenses, Fin24 reported. This is according to the SA Household Wealth Index by Momentum and Unisa, which revealed the SA households' net wealth had decreased to 2014 levels.
Over the past three years, the real value of households' assets has declined while their liabilities remained consistent, according to the index.
The net wealth of households was an estimated 284.6% of their gross income in the first quarter of 2017, but this declined to 279.7% in the second quarter.
This could be because of slow economic growth, the report said.
According to Fin24, Stats SA reported that the economy grew just 1.6% over the last five years, despite the global economy growing at 3.3% over the same period.
The report said that households needed to think more carefully about saving, spending, insurance and debt management to offset the country's economic woes.