Multimillionaire U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) is being criticized for suggesting that it would easy for individual Americans to save $500 a month. On social media, he posted a bar graph to show how much money one could amass if they did so from the age of 18 to 65.
Scott wrote: “If you put $500 in a bank account every month from your 18th birthday until you turn 65, about how much money would you have on your 65th birthday if your average return was the average of the S&P over the last fifty years?”
If you put $500 in a bank account every month from your 18th birthday until you turn 65, about how much money would you have on your 65th birthday if your average return was the average of the S&P over the last fifty years?
— Rick Scott (@ScottforFlorida) March 15, 2026
Former Brevard County School Board member Jennifer Jenkins, a Democrat, responded: “@ScottforFlorida thinks the average American can stash $500 a month from age 18 to 65 like that’s normal. As an educator, I’m lucky if I put $500 into my savings in a year. This is what happens when multimillionaires who profit off of stocks with privileged information lecture working people about money they’ve never had to stretch.”
Note: In January, Jenkins announced that she was dropping out of the Florida U.S. Senate primary and endorsed Alexander Vindman, the retired Army lieutenant colonel who played a key role in the first Trump impeachment and is running against interim Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, former Florida Attorney General, who was appointed by Gov. DeSantis to hold the seat after former Sen. Marco Rubio became Secretary of State. The primary election will be held August 18.
Jenkins announced in February that she’s running for Congress in Florida’s 6th District, against Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) who won the special election in 2025 to take over Rep. Mike Waltz‘s seat after Waltz was tapped by Trump for the job of National Security Advisor, and later U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
If @ScottforFlorida took the $1.7 billion he stole from taxpayers and used it to give people the $500 a month he says they should be saving…
How many months would it last?ANSWER: About 3.4 million months.
Maybe the problem isn’t that working people aren’t saving enough.
— Jennifer Jenkins (@Jenkins4Florida) March 16, 2026
Jenkins added: “If @ScottforFlorida took the $1.7 billion he stole from taxpayers and used it to give people the $500 a month he says they should be saving… How many months would it last? ANSWER: About 3.4 million months. Maybe the problem isn’t that working people aren’t saving enough.”
Note: Scott co-founded Columbia Hospital Corporation, which later became Columbia/HCA, the nation’s largest for-profit health care company. During his tenure as CEO, the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. The DOJ won 14 felony convictions against the company, which was fined $1.7 billion in what was at the time the largest healthcare fraud settlement in U.S. history.