Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 155 posts

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#91

Post by dragonwriter »

legitster wrote: post #56
dragonwriter wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a significant rate of positive saving/investment from income surplus to current consumption, you are not living “paycheck to paycheck”.

I'm not sure if that's how I would have responded to this survey based on the wording of the question.

I think the term is widely enough understood that most people would understand it, but I also will agree that reliably measuring facts other than the fact of the popularity of opinion by a one-question survey that does nothing to confirm a common understanding of the question is very much unreliable.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#92

Post by bluGill »

Things to spend money on raise to fit your paycheck, no matter how much you earn.

I could support my family only half of my income. I'd have to get rid of this house for one where payments are a lot cheaper. I'd have to eat cheaper meals. I have to quit buying so many toys... But I have a large income, and I like my lifestyle.

I do have good savings that comes out first, but sometimes I wonder why: both my parents got cancer at 65 (they are still alive, but social security is more than enough to pay for what their body will allow them to do), I had other friends who didn't even make it to retirement. Why not enjoy life and the money I make now - I can't take it with me when I'm, dead. (of course I also know those who lived to over 100)

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#93

Post by runako »

brimble wrote: post #83
runako wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is easy, assuming an average American family size: - $8,333 gross ($100k) - call taxes 25% (this is aggressive) leaves $6,667 - housing expense of $2k leaves $4,667 - minus 2 auto expenses (used car average payment is $465) brings us to ~$3,400 - childcare (which: is not free even when your kids are in school) of $1,500 yields $1,900 - frugally feeds the family on $1,000 per month - $900 remaining for everything…

- That entire $900 for "everything else" ends up all going to your monthly employee contribution to have a family health insurance plan through your employer. Luckily they're only making you pay about a third of the premium. [EDIT] For anyone from outside the US who's getting a bit lost in all this US-centric budgeting, the TL;DR (and trend which you may have noticed in all this) is that it's insanely expensive to ha…

I was intentionally being very generous. The thing about the cost sharing you mention; it's the kind of change that companies make all the time. An extra $200 out of a family's monthly check can be ruinous.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#94

Post by strikelaserclaw »

siddarthd2919 wrote: post #73
subsubzero wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the rise of social media, people feel the need to flaunt things(cars, houses, vacations, jewelry, you name it). Both me and my Wife are making extremely good tech money, shes a director and I am senior+ engineer. And I feel like everyone is living a lifestyle even we cannot afford. We drive Japanese cars (mid level) a few years old. Bought a very sensible house with a payment that if something happened to one of…

We are in a similar situation and I have come to the conclusion, there is a money tree giving people free money that I am not aware of :)

some people are genuinely rich, but America is a debt based country so without looking at peoples finances you can't really tell much about how rich they really are vs them being able to afford monthly down payments.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#95

Post by JAlexoid »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #42
colechristensen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a difference between “unable” and “not doing”. I’ve been in this position from time to time, and it always came down to making expensive choices or recovering from an unexpected necessary large expense. I might have a few financial regrets but when it comes down to it, spending as much as I made was always just a choice I could have changed at any time.

There are those people who win the lottery and spend it all on expensive women and cars. Or football players who end up broke. I have very little empathy for people making 6 figures though.

US government often doesn't recognize your family member as a dependent, so you get taxed a lot and you still get to support your family members that completely depend on you. So your FAANG $200k salary in CA will yield $120k in cashflow(no 401K or medical), and if you have two parents to support - you're screwed by the government and your real income is shared between 3 people.

I mean.... I literally cannot get my mother to be my dependent, even though I fully financially support her.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#96

Post by giantg2 »

cercatrova wrote: post #26
giantg2 wrote: post #14

"Americans now say they need to be making roughly $122,000 a year to feel financially secure, more than double the national average," I don't make that much, and I support a family. The only thing rest makes me feel financially insecure is the way that IT hiring "works" today. I'm slow at code screen and my background is in irrelevant systems. Living in a terrible area for IT jobs doesn't make it any easier. If I cou…

Have you seen this list of companies that hire without whiteboard/coding interviews? You might also want to refresh your skillset into something like React and NodeJS which has a lot of jobs these days. After having done so, it is relatively easy to get jobs making into the six figures. Hope this helps. https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards

Thanks

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#97

Post by bingohbangoh »

One almost thinks there will always be a base of americans living paycheck-to-paycheck.

If you read Road to Wiggin Pier, Orwell talked about his vain attempts to get people to save money from week to week. Instead they wasted it on strong tea and good toast. What he came to realize was that this was _all these people had to look forward to_.

Even if wages were to rise, some people's first thoughts aren't to save it but to buy something that brings them joy because that extra couple of dollars' worth of joy is worth more than whatever it brings them saved in a bank account, socked in a share or two, etc.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#98

Post by giantrobot »

barbazoo wrote: post #5

> Even among those earning six figures, 42% said they were living paycheck to paycheck, the survey of more than 3,000 adults found. I know there are areas with extremely HCOL, inflation, housing crisis... However, sometimes I do wonder though what some people's budgets are like that they are literally unable to save any money (paycheck to paycheck) making >$100k. Do we know what part lack of financial literacy or sim…

In the Bay Area making "six figures" under $200k isn't as much as it seems on paper. Taxes and pre-tax deductions (insurance premiums etc) easily eat a third of your bi-weekly check. Unless you've got a half dozen roommates rent will easily eat a whole bi-weekly paycheck. The other check goes to a car payment (essentially required in the South and East bay), insurance for same, at least a cellular plan if that and a residential broadband plan, utilities and other monthly bills, and then food for the month.

Because rent is always due at a particular time of the month people need to use whatever cash buffer they have to cover expenses until their next check. So there's people living "paycheck to paycheck" that do have a non-zero amount of dollars in the bank but that buffer is constantly being drained and refreshed paying all the non-rent bills. If they don't have a cash buffer then they need to use credit cards which have fees and interest that obviate any savings margins.

There's a wide dynamic range in the "six figures" category of salaries. In HCOL areas it takes a pretty high "six figures" salary to get over the "paycheck to paycheck" living.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#99

Post by yladiz »

zamfi wrote: post #87
yladiz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paycheck to paycheck generally means that there is little money left for “discretionary” spending, and even assuming there is a large percentage of people who spend when they shouldn’t, 61% is staggering and can’t be explained by that reductive argument alone. Assuming it is correct, to be that high indicates more systemic issues in the system.

My point is that people's non-discretionary spending can grow to meet income, rendering "paycheck to paycheck" kind of meaningless. The family of 4 making $150k and spending not-cheapest-option $40k on childcare and not-cheapest-option $40k on groceries from Whole Foods (or wherever), while paying $30k annually in not-cheapest-option rent, may also believe they have no discretionary income. But that doesn't mean the…

Sure, but most families don’t make that much money so it’s kind of a false dilemma and so I disagree that “paycheck to paycheck” is rendered meaningless because in many cases discretionary spending simply can’t just increase because there is little left after the nondiscretionary money is spent.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#100

Post by dbrueck »

I'm hesitant to write this because of the potential responses, so let me start with this caveat: I know many people are doing their best and are still barely scraping by, and that what I'm writing below does not apply to many people, etc. Ok:

For a few years I was in position to help review families' finances and offer counseling and direct them to community resources, and here are some things I learned:

0) comparison is the thief of joy 1) people are wasting huge amounts of money on credit card interest payments 2) spending less than you make is the main factor in not being constantly stressed by your finances, not having any debt is a close second 3) being stressed about your finances really sucks the fun out of life (and is super hard on most marriages) 4) getting a raise but not increasing your standard of living is often the easiest way to accomplish #2 (and fixing #1 if needed) 5) most people either overlook meaningful spending cuts they can make, or they want other things more than reducing financial stress (see #0) - these choices can be hard (e.g. move away from HCOL area) but those who are willing are almost always able to achieve #2 and are much happier as a result

Post reply on HN