nearly 24% of all households are classified as living paycheck to paycheck this year…That share is slightly higher than last year…
nearly 24% of all households are classified as living paycheck to paycheck this year…That share is slightly higher than last year…
I am surprised and would have expected that number to be higher.
Oh, that isn’t the definition I think most people use for the term “paycheck-to-paycheck”. The definition I’m used to is more like: “When all of the income from a paycheck is exhausted inside of the interval for receiving the next paycheck”. That spending could certainly be on basic necessities as the article suggests, but it could also be on things like student loan payments, unexpected medical bills, unnecessary retail consumer goods, sweets/nicotine/alcohol, or automotive expenditures. Perhaps more succinctly, all the money from a paycheck is spent with no savings, and the cycle repeats upon receiving the next paycheck.
Last study I saw earlier this year said like 50 or 60% of everyone. It is way higher. Not sure what they’re up to here.
With that wording, is it not possible that they have savings just that their savings isn’t growing?
In either the article’s definition or mine I don’t think the folks that meet the definitions have savings. Both definitions have and exhaustion of money component before the next paycheck. If they have funds in savings, they haven’t exhausted their funds, so they aren’t really living “paycheck to paycheck”.