Posted on 04/28/2014 8:59:49 AM PDT by george76
About one-third of American households live "hand-to-mouth," meaning that they spend all their paychecks. But what surprised the study authors is that 66% of these families are middle class, with a median income of $41,000. While they don't have liquid assets, such as savings accounts or mutual fund holdings, they do have homes and retirement accounts, with a median net worth of $41,000.
...
Poor hand-to-mouth households, by contrast, typically have incomes of $21,000 and no assets. Families that don't live paycheck to paycheck have incomes of $51,000 and assets of $116,000.
Those living paycheck to paycheck have a tougher time weathering income shocks, such as illnesses or bouts of unemployment. The study found that they have to cut back their spending far more than those with a reserve they can tap more readily.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
One can forgo all those electronic gadgets and still not have enough money left over to pay for rent, a mortgage, and education, a car, a new business etc. Look at the numbers involved. Rent on a one bedroom apartment is $1000 where I live. A smart phone costs a few hundred and comes with a two digit monthly bill. Do the math, your number don’t add up. All the electronic crap most young Americans have might pay for a couple months rent or mortgage.
This idea that because people today have smart phones, they are not really poor or wouldn’t be poor if they just made better decisions is false. It’s like saying that a person in the 1930’s who owed a gramophone or went to the movies every week could not really be poor.
I also have been on this site since the mid-90s and was in the pro wage stagnation camp trying to get the “greed and stupidity” crowd to pay attention to strategy (i.e. China using their honey pot of labor to capture our manufacturing) vs. profit is everything. Every system needs to be balanced for the long haul. Short term thinking has led us to this very predictable outcome.
You also were very astute in pointing out why the GOP is losing the younger voters as their message is “we got ours, what is your problem, suck it up” while they systematically destroy what is left of the economy for entry level workers through outsourcing, insourcing illegal immigrants, and automation. I have seen this up close and personal while trying to help my twenty-somethings navigate the current landscape. If the GOP has any hope in the future, they need to quit drinking the global-free-trade financial-class kool-aide and start focusing on Main St. vs Wall St.
I do not get a “paycheck” per se....but as a small business owner...I ain’t got nothing to spare.
In fact I stood in line at the grocery store last night and it took all I could stand not to burst into tears at the checkout. The lady in front of me had a government card too....man was I pissed off then. That’s my money feeding her & her kids.
I don’t want to be on the government plantation for food, medical, heat, water etc...
But damn...it gets harder every two weeks to put low grade food in my mouth.
My wife has had clients that were making 7 figures, living paycheck to paycheck, and going bankrupt. Not joking. The private school tuitions, new M-Bs every year, nannies, gardeners, big mansion in the best part of town, $30k shopping sprees at Saks and Nieman-Marcus, expensive European vacations - well, pretty soon it all adds up.
Not quite paycheck to paycheck but we pay for private school and had a child in a serious accident that racked up some medical bills (because I pay mine) and the usual government stealing.
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