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I do not believe this. Number one: it's survey data. Number two: the link states, "As of January 2023, 60% of United States adults, including more than four in 10 high-income consumers, live paycheck to paycheck"
What I take this to mean is that 40% of Americans will say they are living paycheck to paycheck on surveys regardless of how much money they make.
If you buy a House that is three times larger than the house your British equivalent buys and then get two massive SUVs that you use for all your transportation needs being broke is kind of expected. I work as a software engineer in Europe, and I can't really afford a massive house or a car. Yet, I am able to save 20% of my salary every month.
Hello fellow software engineer in Europe who can’t quite afford such things. What do you do with your savings?
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That could be true, but that is also the least charitable interpretation of these people/families plight. As is the opinion that it is survey data thus unreliable.
More than half of Americans (58%) describe themselves as living paycheck to paycheck
Americans Rely on Credit Cards to Make Ends Meet As 64% Admit to Living Paycheck to Paycheck
two different surveys from 2023 for reproducibility, as all I see are surveys for paycheck to paycheck data. Full disclosure, on one of the surveys only about a 1/4 believe they would benefit from student debt forgiveness, 14% don't know. I actually don't doubt that they are living pay check to paycheck but perhaps the disagreement is that the phrase implies they aren't able to afford to put money away after rent,food,childcare,ect. at the most minimal level possible as opposed to where they live or currently spend? Zip codes would have been valuable to collect, as it is possible someone making 100k as a single person living in a rural area is misrepresenting themselves vs. a couple each making a 50k in a San Francisco type city where they work, struggling with rent and child care costs.
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Alternatively, many people, as they make more money, use the opportunity to spend more money, instead of to be more fiscally secure.
This seems like the correct answer. The definition of paycheck-to-paycheck is extremely loose. All that needs to happen is that the household spend all the money. It’s useful to those who want to gin up support for welfare programs and wealth transfers because it sounds like poverty.
Additionally, many who would report themselves as paycheck-to-paycheck have assets and are saving money. A friend of mine describes himself as such while putting 30% of his money into an investment account each check. To him, that money does not count because it is not available for spending (by his self imposed rules).
Which is hilarious mental accounting.
In which case, I too, live paycheck-to-paycheck. After paying for housing, utilities, food, bills, miscellaneous expenses, and putting the rest into brokerage accounts, I also have nothing leftover. Hmph! Weird.
I can actually relate to your friend. After the brief dopamine hit of buying some ETFs wears off each time I get paid, there's post-purchase-clarity and a general feeling of, "ugh, now I have to wagecuck for another whole pay-cycle to have more money to throw at the stock market." In that sense, it does feel irrationally like living paycheck-to-paycheck, even if it's hardly a central example of the concept (to say the least).
Good for him, though. It would probably be better for most people's financial health to have an attitude like your friend, to treat savings/investments as a recurring, necessary expense and rigidly put money into savings/investment accounts rather than consooming it all away.
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