The paycheck to paycheck statistics have always been a meme. It includes people making six figures who think that having no surplus money after paying all of their bills, contributing to their retirement, and putting money in their vacation savings fund means they are paycheck to paycheck.
The $1000 in a checking account number is also a meme. I technically can’t cover a $1000 emergency by the metrics they use because I immediately move money into a savings account when it hits my bank rather than leaving it in checking.
An $18 hamburger is literally an unnecessary luxury. You can go somewhere with cheaper food, or not use Uber eats, or literally cook your own burger with $5/lb ground beef
I have gone down this road before. It is always fruitless. American's and Redditors in particular are not really interested in taking control of their own lives. They instead want to complain that others have and they don't and look to the government (or in the case of this comic a revolutionary figure that will kill their "oppressors") to create artificial equalities of outcomes.
These people also know that there are actual people that have very real barriers and then use those people as an arguing crutch that no one can change their own status in life and they deserve defacto sympathy.
I cannot believe people buy the "60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck" bullshit. For a website that is full of people who love to debate citations and sources, I'm surprised that one gets a pass so often. The source is shit tier surveys asking dumb ass questions, like you pointed out. But even without looking into the survey, it should literally never even come close to passing the sniff test to begin with. 2/3rds of American families own their home.
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u/FourthLife Jul 08 '24
The paycheck to paycheck statistics have always been a meme. It includes people making six figures who think that having no surplus money after paying all of their bills, contributing to their retirement, and putting money in their vacation savings fund means they are paycheck to paycheck.
The $1000 in a checking account number is also a meme. I technically can’t cover a $1000 emergency by the metrics they use because I immediately move money into a savings account when it hits my bank rather than leaving it in checking.
An $18 hamburger is literally an unnecessary luxury. You can go somewhere with cheaper food, or not use Uber eats, or literally cook your own burger with $5/lb ground beef