It feels so odd reading this when I think about the struggles of raising my family off of $43k net.
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60% of millennials earning over $100,000 say they're living paycheck to paycheck
- Thread starter Septimus Prime
- Start date
Tuition was for kids not the adults LMAO.
Also they aren't paying rent? How about a mortgage? Are they living for free? I said 1- 2 cars. Many places have HOA fees OR you pay for all the utilities including water. I didn't say the average family. I'm just showing how quickly 100k can be eaten up by a family of 4
Yes?
Especially when 60% of 100k Millennials don't live in three cities.
that's not rich but it sure as fuck isn't poor.
100k for an individual living anywhere in the United States is by definition, not poor.
I assume you are referencing:
The article clearly lays out the need to have a nuanced discussion on "paycheck to paycheck" and how the inflation of goods relative to salary has screwed things.
100k is both not poor and also not rich. It's sadly what "middle class" has become for many folks in larger metro areas. We do very well for ourselves but one town over are people with summer homes larger than my entire property line.
I think there's a real discussion to be had on the cost of many things we take for granted within the US. School, child care and medical are all astronomical cost factors. Never mind how ridiculously hard it is to own a home now given the massive inflation there.
It's simply just more expensive to get by now than it was a few decades back. This article notes this in an attempt to address it but frames it poorly by using paycheck to paycheck.
100k is both not poor and also not rich. It's sadly what "middle class" has become for many folks in larger metro areas. We do very well for ourselves but one town over are people with summer homes larger than my entire property line.
I think there's a real discussion to be had on the cost of many things we take for granted within the US. School, child care and medical are all astronomical cost factors. Never mind how ridiculously hard it is to own a home now given the massive inflation there.
It's simply just more expensive to get by now than it was a few decades back. This article notes this in an attempt to address it but frames it poorly by using paycheck to paycheck.
I actually disagree...
We need a narrower definition of paycheck to paycheck. Not some broader one.
My point is it just sounds like people have just become so brow-beaten by capitalism that this is the line they're fine with. When I feel it should be better than that. What people consider barely not poor here should be the standard of poor of like the richest nation in the world.
I actually agree with this.
Then again, I've been forced to realize lately that I'm getting older.
Once upon a time, "paycheck to paycheck" meant "if I miss a pay period, I might end up out on the street."
Nothing I see described in this thread in support of the 100kers comes close to that. It's a debate of comfort. Not immediate needs, which is what defines "paycheck to paycheck" imo.
Yes I am fine with saying making 100k a year is not poverty.
I also don't believe that when push comes to shove these 100k people are going to show class solidarity with the working poor.
I make around 100k living in LA and am able to put away around 1600 a month into my 401K and stock portfolio and just dropped my entire yearly bonus into investments as well. It can be done.
That being said I have no dependents which certainly helps in that regard.
Because that is the foundational definition that I thought everyone agreed with, it appears I had a massive misunderstanding of what people viewed it as.
I'm living paycheck to paycheck implies if I miss a paycheck I'm screwed. It doesn't mean, I'm going to have to balance Blue Apron, Ipsy, and Stance sub's.
so for some millenials living "paycheck to paycheck" means they would need to not eat avocado toast for 1 week, instead of being throw out from their homes?
This is 100% true. I agree with your definition and agree that it's a debate over comfort, not survival. That said, what actually matters is assessing "discretionary post-tax income, indexed for the cost of living." That's comparing, sometimes literally, apples to apples.
Again, before someone else selectively quotes me: 100k is not "paycheck to paycheck" anywhere.
But if the operative metric is assessing qualitative questions like "how often can you and your family of 4 go out to dinner a month?" it's not like the 100k-in-NYC folks are living especially large compared to the family in Omaha.
I think that's actually a good conversation to have! It's not the topic of this thread, but it's a worthwhile topic nonetheless.
I mean, even a lot of working poor don't have class solidarity with other working poor.
Anti-immigrant and NIMBY sentiments are very strong in general here, even in liberal areas.
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So you don't agree at all with the cost of things rising and outpacing salaries, nor that it's entirely possible for a family earning 100k to be paycheck to paycheck?
Yes, clearly, that is what I have argued for the past X amount of posts. Well done.
i mean it is an exagerattion from my part, but my point is that for some people "paycheck to paycheck" is just actually changing how they live, not actually losing their house
A family earning 100k? Maybe, yeah. I think some folks are talking about single millennials, and others are talking about family, whereas the conversation's only useful if you standardize (i.e. assume 2.2 kids or whatever the figure is these days). NYC with 4 kids is a hugely different scenario than SF as a single person.
Alrighty then.
To the tune of a significant number rather than outliers?
No, especially when we're talking individual incomes not household income
Unless you think the majority of that 60% are single earner households with children... which I do not.
Well isn't that just the problem with these studies? They're often taken as blanket generalizations rather than splitting out the stats.
So then what is the appropriate cutoff and demographic point for someone to be allowed to say they live paycheck to paycheck
It also doesn't state who is of the survey. It says "they're likely HENRY"
There are likely people in this thread who come from backgrounds where they never had to experience hunger, shut off utilities, and constant eviction notices/threats of homelessness - sometimes all at once. They have no idea how on the edge life can become after one missed paycheck, and conflate the former with the same as cutting back on eating out, vacationing, and QoL services.
It's not a knock on them, they're just using the phrase in the wrong way.
yeah, it is not, but they feel it is, because it will take them out of their "baseline" lifestyle
No idea but we're talking broad statistics here
Unless you can really show me otherwise I'm pretty comfortable saying most people making 100k are not by the proper definition living paycheck to paycheck
Then that is a fundamental poor understanding of paycheck to paycheck. Traditionally, rather from my perspective, this has been a phrase used to discuss the struggles of the working poor. There isn't anywhere else to cut back, they already struggle with trying to balance food, electricity, gas for the car, and whether or not their son or daughter can get a new pair of shoes or if they need to keep wearing the ones their sibling gave them. A lost paycheck isn't going to mean no avocado toast this week, it is going to mean we need to hit up some food bank.
To see anyone, a millennial or otherwise, try to co-opt that phrase to discuss the issues they are having surviving on 100k is as I said earlier in this thread stupidly offensive and callous.
Agreed. That's why I was pulling up bank statements last night, because I wanted actual data.
Define necessities -- food, shelter, health insurance premiums, and I'll even throw in child care expenses.
If you cannot absorb one month's expenses out of savings or changing your lifestyle to reduce expenses (i.e., selling things or getting a roommate), and you need that next paycheck to cover those necessities even in part, then you're living paycheck to paycheck.
I would also argue that some lifestyle changes are unreasonable to consider... a family of 4 can't get a random roommate, whereas the single millennial in DC/NYC/SF probably should.
I mean, I'm not trying to overcomplicate it... it really is self-explanatory, I think.
im agreeing with you both
This thread seems like people keep talking past each other. Some people are saying that yes in many places making 100k and with potential children can make life more difficult to live and you might not have months of savings while others are just stating that it's not the same as living paycheck to paycheck. 60% of millennials making that much are not going into eviction/food insecurity after a month of no income.
These threads/discussions always seem like a slap in the face to anyone that has been truly poor. Though it sucked at the time, I'm glad I gained some perspective from being "50 dollars away from being on the street" poor before earning enough to live comfortably.
I agree on all counts. I just hate these threads that happen from articles that down lay out the finite data of those surveyed. They often feel intentional this way to do precisely what this thread is doing.
Whether you're making 50k or 100k at the end of the day the cost to live in the US is much higher than it was in 1995 let alone 1965. Food and shelter just cost more.
While I agree that we have to acknowledge how being in poverty living paycheck to paycheck much worse experience than what is being talked about in here I don't like doing this as it reminds me of that fox news image of "how can you be poor if you have a refrigerator". Otherwise you could say many people talking about living in poverty in the US is a slap in the face to people making less than a dollar a day in other parts of the world.
Yep. As someone who lived under parents who were very much paycheck to paycheck as I described, this fervor to try and get poverty points by people who make $100K is out of touch at best.
Absolutely nothing here is comparable to you're not poor if you have a fridge, and I think it really undercuts the cruelty of that statement when you water it down.
I don't know how you turned that thing the other way around but you did.
I think my final thought will be this. I have empathy for these people, but they have to realize in terms of income equality they are doing pretty damn good for themselves. If they want things to improve for themselves, worry more about others doing way way worse and push for changes there. The effects will bubble up and you won't look out of touch.
Sorry if I'm phrasing this badly but my sense from the post was you can't talk about difficulties after making a certain amount which I think I misinterpreted so my apologies
But I think I'm talking past the article itself into more into the discussions that have popped up in here.
I completely agree with this. Ultimately we can do much better for all of the country and you have to acknowledge what everyone else is going through even if it may seem difficult for you. I will say that I think that the actual rich loves watching lower and middle class people fight over their difficulties while they get to continue to amass wealth, so while we have to acknowledge privilege ultimately the fight should be with those at the top who have no actual problems whatsoever
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It's bizarre, some people on here sounding off like they are on My Super Sweet 16. Comparing not living life to not having a luxury car lol
Completely detached from the reality of people who are struggling.
Then stop reinforcing bad arguments because you dislike this particular set of facts.
If anything the fact that relatively higher earners are feeling the squeeze due to ballooning housing costs and debt just supports how much worse off relatively lower earners are.
What bad arguments? That 100k isn't poverty and on majority average is not actually living paycheck to paycheck?
If anything what helps Republicans is adopting the language of the working poor to talk about people making 100k
The ones preaching the ethics of personal responsibility that pervade this thread. The same ones you always see used to gloss over the obvious systemic issues.
So your argument is that all talk of budgeting and living within means at any income level is Republican rhetoric?
I'm saying the fact that this article is about people who make 100k is getting you to spout Republican rhetoric.
(Because that's what it's designed to do.)
But your lifestyle shouldn't change because as we have clearly shown by this thread, 100k is not a great deal of money in NYC, its effectively poor or so I'm being told.
I have continually broken down the tax argument, it isn't nearly as much as people are making it out to be. Single 100k income, no kids/no spouse, in NYC, you are looking at a 30% tax rate.