Bloomberg is out with a troubling new report today about a survey suggesting that a third of Americans making at least $250,000 annually are living paycheck-to-paycheck:
Worried about inflation? More than 1 in 3 Americans earning at least $250,000 annually say they are living paycheck to paycheck. https://t.co/jlL25d18qj via @atanzi @economics @wealth pic.twitter.com/4i8JFrMUjO
— Steve Matthews (@SteveMatthews12) June 1, 2022
Some 36% of households taking in nearly four times the median US salary devote nearly all of their income to household expenses, according to a survey by industry publication Pymnts.com and LendingClub Corp.
It’s particularly true among millennials, who are now in their mid-20s to early 40s: More than half of top earners in that generation report having little left at the end of the month.
…
The $250,000-plus income bracket roughly represents the top 5% of earners in the country, according to US Census Bureau data.
We totally get that pretty much everything is significantly more expensive these days (thanks again for that, Joe Biden!), but we’re really not clear on how such a large chunk of the top 5% of earners in this country are living “paycheck-to-paycheck.”
Uh wait…*55.4%* of Millennials making OVER $250,000/year report living paycheck to paycheck? That's a lot of money to spend on Yankee candles every month. https://t.co/afvFUTiUlT
— Jeff B. is *BOX OFFICE POISON* (@EsotericCD) June 1, 2022
Right?
*Boomers who make > $250k live pretty much everywhere, 30 year olds making $250k are gonna be pretty much confined to a handful of metros with insane real estate prices
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 1, 2022
**plus a lot of those Boomers have paid off 3 br houses they bought in 1986 for $100k. An example $200k+ Millennial might be paying a $1.5 million mortgage on a 2 br dump in San Jose they just bought last year
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 1, 2022
Those are great points.
That is, quite literally, an inconceivable statistic. Sometimes you have to look at a number that's just ridiculous and say "Nope. Nope. Bad data." Something's amiss there, whether in sampling or in questioning/response.
— Jeff B. is *BOX OFFICE POISON* (@EsotericCD) June 1, 2022
What is amiss would appear to be the understanding of what it means to live paycheck-to-paycheck.
Either these folks are breathtakingly bad with money, or they don’t know what “paycheck to paycheck” means. https://t.co/yYNaCnoHy6
— Armen Changelian (@ArmenChangelian) June 1, 2022
"Paycheck to paycheck" is a misleading term here – something the article also mentions. It doesn't mean hardship or not being able to pay your bills. https://t.co/cRHoufryk1 pic.twitter.com/A2qJHcJGC3
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) June 1, 2022
This is just a bizarre article.
Wait what? https://t.co/pUT1RPUmXb
— David B. Larter (@DavidLarter) June 1, 2022
I can say with utmost confidence that if you are making $250k and you are living paycheck-to-paycheck you spend way too much money on housing and your car. You don't get to claim that if you live in midtown Manhattan and drive a Tesla
— David B. Larter (@DavidLarter) June 1, 2022
"But I work in Manhattan!"
*Entire NJ transit train at 6:45 am in Edison, NJ, full of people who also work in Manhattan.*
— David B. Larter (@DavidLarter) June 1, 2022
And on top of everything else, Bloomberg has effectively erased Gen X..
You know what's stressful? Having my generation skipped over again so we can see how much the Boomers are owning the Millennials. pic.twitter.com/e1Nma0wsFe
— The Wokest Numbersmuncher (@NumbersMuncher) June 1, 2022
Those of us in Gen-X pic.twitter.com/pbZzVZNmXQ
— Christopher Heath (@CHeathWFTV) June 1, 2022
The Lost Generation.
