A lot of Americans are really struggling.

The precarious personal finance situation of Americans has made news for years. It is something we've written about a lot at Business Insider. 

Elevate's Center for the New Middle Class wanted to look into the issue to find when an unexpected expense becomes a crisis for ordinary Americans.

And t he results were pretty depressing. 

Elevate carried out a study based on a 10-minute online questionnaire surveying 502 nonprime (credit score below 700) and 525 prime Americans (credit score of 700 or above).

It turns out that nonprime Americans with credit scores below 700 are likely to be hit harder, and more often, by unexpected expenses than prime Americans. 160 million Americans come under the nonprime category, according to the study.

"A bill becomes a crisis for nonprime Americans at $1,400. For Prime, it’s $2,900," the study said. "An unexpected expense becomes a significant disruption to prime Americans