How is the average American coping right now when 61% of us are living paycheck to paycheck?

I’ve moved up. Now I live direct deposit to direct deposit.

Just wait for student loans and child care expenses to hit at the end of the month while interest rates continue to climb. People are not going to be okay for much longer.

You see, I’ve been paycheck to paycheck most of my life… Im what you call “old poor”. I know how to make it on the bare minimum (less if needed). I feel for all these “new poor” that are in for a rude awakening.

Things aren’t getting better.

I feel like we need to Define “paycheck to paycheck”. I know a medical device sales rep who makes $400K+ annually and says he’s “paycheck to paycheck”, he has a lot of luxuries and investments and doesn’t factor that in.

Paycheck to paycheck within what level of means ?

On one hand times are tough. On the other hand I go out to eat and the parking lot is full of shiny ass trucks. You can’t claim you’re barely making ends meet while driving a Raptor.

This situation may feel unusual, but, historically, almost everyone I’ve known over the last 60 something years has lived paycheck to paycheck. In my life, it has been unusual for anyone to have savings or room on their credit card. And it sucks. It sucks to live that way.

Terrible and heating bills are ahead of us.

Because 61% aren’t actually living paycheck to paycheck. At least not as you interpret that phrase.

Dig into the finances of people who report this, and you’ll often find high earners and other people who absolutely could have a financial cushion, except they’ve locked themselves into high fixed costs or gratuitous discretionary spending. You’ll even find people who say they are living “paycheck to paycheck” while investing significant portions of their income, because they don’t consider that money to be available for spending.

73% of adults reported they were doing “at least okay” financially at the end of 2022. I don’t think people who are actually living paycheck to paycheck would assess their situation that wa.

That’s a bullshit study. 1/3 of people making $250k or more say they’re living paycheck to paycheck.

“Paycheck to paycheck” is a term that gets used very loosely by a lot of people.

Some people will claim that they’re paycheck to paycheck because after paying their bills, contributing to their 401k and IRA, adding to their savings account, and paying for all other expenses… they’ve “spent” their entire paycheck. If that’s the definition, then plenty of wealthy people are “paycheck to paycheck.”

A better definition of paycheck to paycheck would be “having negative or near zero net worth, and making no progress toward increasing one’s net worth.”

I think that term is too vague to hold much meaning. If I make $1 million dollars a year and buy a house/cars/etc that are out of my budget I can end up living paycheck to paycheck.

I would be more interested in the number of people living paycheck to paycheck based on actual needs vs just in general. I was one of the people I laid out in my example at one point. I didn’t make that much, but significantly more than I do now, but it basically all went out as fast as it came in. With some basic effort to actually manage my budget and spending, I have a decent buffer of savings while making about 1/3 of what I was before.

For people (especially families with kids) making less than the U.S. median ($70K) it’s pretty rough unless you live in a LCOL or MCOL state. Especially if you have no home or other real assets. A lot of these folks are probably maxing out credit cards, borrowing from friends or family, deferring car repairs and retirement savings, etc. when shit hits the fan.

If you’re making that or above, especially in a location that’s affordable to live and you’ve locked in a house, you’re in one of two camps. One camp lives below their means, saves and invests, plans for the future and keeps an emergency fund. The other expands their lifestyle/costs every time they get a raise or bonus.

I don’t want to minimize the struggle of folks who don’t make much to begin with, it’s rough out there. But being in a professional field and decently far along in my career, I see SO much of the latter group. Families making $150-200K in an affordable Midwest state who always have to buy or lease a new car, “need” to upgrade to a McMansion after the second kid is born, pay thousands of dollars annually for kids’ travel sports and country club memberships, eat out multiple times a week, buy a $60K boat or RV on impulse, spend thousands on a Disney vacation. I could go on.

A not inconsequential portion of the paycheck to paycheck folks are choosing this lifestyle and really can’t afford it, it’s all just lifestyle creep. Incredible to see, really.

I’m convinced a huge swath of the population is just riding the line of going postal and chasing down the overlords with pitchforks.

Every single time I ask what does “paycheck to paycheck” actually mean, I usually get 4-5 different answers. So I’m going to say most are fine.

Well pots alot more available these days, so there that.

Alcohol, because it’s cheaper than healthy food, doesn’t make me feel shittier than shit food, and my health is failing anyways so eff it.

I pay a quarter of my salary renting a tiny shite apartment. I have a student loan payment due in three weeks that is presently set to be about thirty five percent of my salary. I’ve applied for income based repayment and haven’t heard shit back about it.

I spend almost two hours a day driving to commute to work because the area I live in has no public transit. It would be cool to live closer to work, but then I’d be looking at doubling my rent. Every time I go to the grocery store I end up spending at least a hundred bucks and somehow only getting enough food for a couple of days. And prices keep going up. And then there are prescriptions I need to live. All of which get more expensive every year because in the USA prices go up up up while wages stay low low low. So most of the rest of my salary goes to gas, medicine, and food.

And then there are the chronic medical problems that set in two years ago, haven’t been effectively treated, and show no sign of stopping, pushing me further into debt, because even when I have supposedly good insurance, somehow it still won’t cover diagnostic procedures beyond basic blood work. And dental? Apparently your teeth and gums aren’t necessary for health because health insurance doesn’t cover them and dental insurance is a cruel joke if you have anything but a baby cavity. I was in an accident years ago and wound up cracking several teeth. Every crown I get means nearly a thousand bucks of debt. And when I can’t afford crowns and push them off, I wind up losing teeth and then facing about four thousand bucks for each single implant.

I’m operating in the red, always, and probably will be until I die in the next decade from some combination of heart disease brought on by dental infection and alcoholism. Wife, kids, house—not in the cards for this old sport.

Being an American is painful, expensive, demoralizing, and depressing.

I’m a bankruptcy lawyer and business is definitely up.

Got a 3rd job. Have no hobbies anymore. I sleep on avg 4-5hrs a day split between 2 naps. Health spiraling downward.

I just donated plasma for $125
Full tank of gas and my electric bill paid for September. Yippee 🎉

My mother survived and prospered out of a kind of squalor that makes my current poverty seem like living middle class. I have nowhere the near kind of climb she had. She was born in the back of a car, and endured a childhood of sleeping in parking lots, and living in condemned buildings behind paint factories. If she can make it, so can I.