2y ago

62% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck, making it ‘the main financial lifestyle,’ report finds

www.cnbc.com 62% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck, making it ‘the main financial lifestyle,’ report finds

The number of workers who say they are stretched thin has remained stubbornly high as inflation weighs on American households.

Breaking news: in one of the most productive countries / economies in the entire history of humanity, the majority of people creating that productivity do not get to enjoy the rewards of that productivity.

same as it ever was.

105 comments

You know what would fix this? More military spending.
- You’re getting dangerously close to sounding like you don’t support the troops!
- Well we certainly shouldn't have a universal healthcare system that would lift people out of medical debt and not tie them to low-paying, menial jobs just to get health insurance.
  Because something about invisible hands.
- Look, the oil rich countries arent going to discover freedom by themselves

Unions.
- I give 1% to my union. My pay is ~10% better than it would be if we didn't have it, and management gets in huge trouble if they mistreat workers. And by trouble, I mean they fired a manager when they scheduled a worker over their lunch break.
  
  Damn, I could sure use that at Amazon...
- Wow great comment. Thanks for contributing
  
  You know, as time goes on, your derision just outs you for the bootlicker that you are.
- So you still live paycheck to paycheck, except now you have to trust someone else to negotiate on your behalf instead of negotiating yourself
  
  negotiating yourself
  Collective action is the only way to get even remotely close to a fair wage.
  
  If one person quits they shrug and hire some other shmuck. If everyone quits, they have a problem. Good luck negotiating that way.
  
  "instead of negotiating"
  
  Negotiating collectively is the only way to negotiate with a Capitalist. Individually, you are a replaceable cog, collectively you're the machine.
  
  If you're living paycheck to paycheck it stands to reason that your negotiating position isn't very good.

This was a terrific time for us to go down to a single income.
- Terrific time for me to get divorced.
  And be a single income prior to it.
  
  Alimony is brutal

Lady in the thumbnail got some guns
- Srsly. Economics Schmeconomics, whats the tattooed lady’s story?
  
  If she has kids, they gotta be the most well behaved kids in the history of the universe.
- Guns like Prison Mugatu
  https://youtu.be/7xUtZzLBV5c?si=13fkF-f1zcH8HAQZ
- Did you just assume their gender?
  
  Lol aren't you just on a roll on this post 🤣

Seems like a lowball number actually
- Many many people are unemployed and/or homeless, or trapped in debt, which skews the numbers.

If only we were back in the good Ole days of 2019 with the economy roaring and 78% of people reporting living paycheck to paycheck according to CareerBuilder.
It's PROBABLY a measurement problem, not an actual number with insight on how people are living. People self report incorrectly to a lot of things, and paycheck-to-paycheck can mean a lot of things. We think of it as someone who might be homeless without their paycheck but someone who would have to sell some stocks or stop retirement contributions might also think of themselves as "paycheck to paycheck."
If you are working, your paycheck is probably a big part of your budget. That makes this survey question a bit meaningless.
- You're spot on here. Plenty of people count maxing out their 401k and IRA as "living paycheck to paycheck", because their budgets would go upside if they missed a paycheck and did literally nothing to cover it.
  Combine that with the general bias all people have to view themselves as generally normal and you get a pretty meaningless metric.
- but someone who would have to sell some stocks or stop retirement contributions might also think of themselves as “paycheck to paycheck.”
  Oh, like I had to do when I moved to another apartment? I had to wipe out my (tiny) Roth IRA just to pay the deposit. My wife had to wipe hers out just to pay the movers and all the other BS fees. We now have no retirement savings and haven’t since we moved six months ago. We both had to stop contributing to our IRAs in order to continue paying the bills. We’re not even paycheck to paycheck at this point, we’re at month to month.
  
  We just had to refinance our mortgage because our credit card debt was out of control and the payments were too high.
  But it did nothing to help with student loans or medical debts.
  
  Yeah, I had to empty my 401k to be able to just keep renting and I've decided that it's probably not worth paying towards anymore since by the time I would retire they likely would tell me I need at least 8 times whatever I could afford to put in so I'll just plan for death as my retirement like Boeing would want.
- but someone who would have to sell some stocks or stop retirement contributions might also think of themselves as “paycheck to paycheck.”
  And some people think the Earth is flat...
  But neither population is statistically significant
  
  Selling my stocks to pay rent would be like selling my car to pay for a bus ticket.
  if you need to sell your stocks to receive value from them then you're gambling not investing and I would actually consider that the same shitty situation.
  
  The median savings is $5,300. So at the bare minimum, 12% of America has over $5,300 in savings but considers themselves "paycheck-to-paycheck."

Ugh, poor people and their disgusting lifestyle choice of having no money.
Can't they just dip into their trustfunds if they're short?
- Trustfunds? You think every success is a Rockefeller or something? Just ask as family member for a million dollar loan to start a business, that's how all the modern greats have done it. (/s plz don't hurt me)

Still? That number will only grow. Trickle down economics doesn't exist and Americans don't understand what class consciousness is.

Remember this the next time someone says "what the market will bear."
Unchecked capitalism is about aggressively exploiting resources. We, our time, and whatever we posses of value, are all such resources.

Hey, but everyone, the 1% are doin' great and Biden needs his re-election, so the economy is super stronk!
- How ignorant can a comment even be? I mean just the idea that the current economy and state of wealth inequality is Joe Biden's fault is astounding. The previous administration gave biggest handout to the 1% of any government in the history of mankind.
  But that's just the history of America for the last 40 years I guess. Republicans administrations gutting things, giving massive handouts to the rich, destroying social safety nets, allowing corruption and fraud to go rampant, etc... then when a democratic administration tries to clean it up just a little bit, to stabilize things, all the mouth breathers suddenly forget everything happened beforehand.
  
  Don't get me wrong I hate the prior guy. But isn't it always funny how the Democratic party in their times of super majority don't tend to fix the shit entirely that the last guy rammed through. Take the tax cuts and removing alot of deductions for the working class. Wouldn't it make sense to undo those tax cuts and tax increases?
  Both sides aren't the same but this ain't a left vs right issue, it's a class war.
  
  Good thing that Biden isn't fixing that but is instead spending all his time trying to throw more bombs on babies.
  
  Lots of words by a dolt who just doesn't get it.
  I get it. You voted Hilary. Like a dolt.

Really need to bring back the 'New Deal' era laws and regulations.
Waiting for raw Capitalism to 'lift all boats' just won't happen, as only the strongest 'boats' survive the storms.
Capitalisms default mode is 'let them eat cake'.

damn that person looks swoll while buying chips and syrup?

I am unable to find (and would love a link) any data on population distribution through the quintiles of income.
- Does this help? This is the most recent data I found.
  https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/
  
  This does help! Quickly cross-referencing this, it means people solidly in the middle quintile (not all, but some %) are also living paycheck to paycheck, which honestly should be talked about more.

What I have seen is that the issue is now at the local economy level. In the urban areas costs have returned to pre-2020 prices. In rural areas the prices are still extremely high. Gas in a urban area is around $2.30 while in rural areas it's $3.15. Milk prices are about a 0.75 a gallon difference as well. Life sucks if you live in the middle of nowhere, but it's not bad if you live close to a urban area. The price difference appears to be due to transportation costs. It just isn't worth the logistics to support rural communities anymore for most companies.
- You keep saying this. Got a source?
  Gas near me in my urban area is at $2.90 and milk is $3.15 a gallon. Prices are still way up on most essential goods, but they've stopped climbing. Wages sure as hell haven't kept up either. And rent went up higher last year than ever.
  
  Gas is a little under $5 a gallon in my urban area.
  
  I wish gas was that low. It's still at about $3.65 here and has been for years.
  
  Gas in my commute town in rural Georgia and nearby rural towns is around $2.90-3.20, in Macon it's $2.70-2.80, Savannah it's $2.70-2.80, in Augusta it's $2.80-2.90, and in Atlanta it's $3.20. My area has over 50k people, Macon has 234k people, Savannah 405k, Augusta 611k, and Atlanta 6.1 million. Based off of this limited data I could guess smaller urban areas have lower prices, which rise the larger they get until they eventually meet or surpass rural prices. But then you can look at Colombus with 330k population and their gas prices are $2.50-2.60, but then again it's partially in Alabama which might explain the lower prices (Alabamans are poor af)
- Not this urban area.
- lol, urban prices have not gone down.
  
  You might want to check again.
- I don't know about that. I live in a small city, but it's a depressed community. Gas here has been under $3.00. This weekend, we went to visit my mother in a slightly larger city, but it is a desirable city, and gas was over $3.10.
  So it's not really all about urban and rural. There are urban areas people want to live in and there are urban areas that people are less interested in living in and the latter are also cheaper despite being urban.
  I just looked at a good example. Gary, IN and Chicago, IL.
  According to Gas Buddy, gas in Gary is around $2.75/gallon. Gas in Chicago is around $3.10/gallon. Gary definitely counts as urban.
  Meanwhile, nearby but rural Winamac, IN (I picked it at random)- $3.10. Same as Chicago.
  
  Gas prices very wildly from location to location, and probably aren't a good indicator.

105 comments