LogFAQs > #981869113

emblem-man posted...

This factoid is brought up a lot, but I don't think it's actually true.

https://Twitter.com/besttrousers/status/1826076082056876510?t=6jgEDtrZjDPObqnOmrWtcA&s=19

I mean again, it's Forbes. So who do we trust, Bernie Sanders and Forbes, who are opposite sides of the political spectrum, or this guy on Twitter, who's probably got credentials, but less media sway due to not being a sitting US Senator or a major money publication.

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics-2024/

Now I will say, using 'average' is kind of misleading, when the top like .1% have like 90% of all the money.

The top 1% of Americans also control more wealth than the entire middle class, including 26.5% of all household wealth in mid-2023.

As of February 2024, the average American household had a wealth of $1.09 million, while the average household in the top 0.1% had a wealth of over $1.52 billion. This is based on the value of all assets owned, minus debt and other liabilities

As of July 2024, the roughly 800 billionaires in the United States own 3.8% of the country's wealth, while the bottom half of American families own only 2.5%. In late 2022, billionaires had more wealth than the bottom half of US households, with $4.5 trillion compared to $4.1 trillion. The top 1% of the population also held $43.45 trillion in wealth

I'm not a math expert, but it's quite clear the ultra rich could be skewing these 'average' stats quite a bit, when the .1% is worth thousands of times more than the average citizen.

800 people own 50% more of the countries wealth than 170 million Americans combined.

And I'd also add that living paycheck to paycheck means that a simply emergency could end up leaving someone homeless.

According to various surveys, between 34% and 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, meaning they have little to no money left over for savings after paying their monthly expenses:
Bankrate: 34% of workers say they live paycheck to paycheck, and 59% are uncomfortable with their emergency savings.
MarketWatch: 66.2% of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck, and 92.1% of those who consider themselves "broke" say the same. Women are more likely to report living paycheck to paycheck than men, and a high percentage of top earners also say they fall into this category.
LendingClub Bank: 61% of American consumers live paycheck to paycheck.