Since it is a self-evident fact that workers are endangered on every hand, why do they themselves not adequately prepare for enforced idleness or old age? A complete answer involves many considerations. First, a worker, like other people, gives little thought, as long as he is well and strong, to accident, sickness, or old age. He sees no need for taking measures against a calamity that may never come. His greatest concern is in his immediate task. Present wants obscure future demands. Suppose, however, that the typical American workman, realizing the risks to which he was exposed, should decide to save enough to tide him over periods of sickness or idleness, or even to maintain him in decency during his old age. Even then it is doubtful that he would succeed, for no system of budgets yet devised for the workers shows any surplus above present needs, large enough for such a purpose. The simplest calculation shows that family incomes of five or six hundred dollars a year are too slender to permit of savings of any consequence. For the same reason our worker carries little or no insurance against loss, even where insurance is possible. The two chief obstacles to individual protection, therefore, are lack of foresight and lack of funds. Either alone is of no avail.