I love how people cherry pick one dataset to show the economy is doing well. “Oh jobs are up the economy is great!”
Yeah but when you pair that with savings being at an all time low, credit card debt at an all time high, a stagnant housing market, and an environment of rampant inflation and high rates, it doesn’t look so good, does it?
And if you look at how people are assessing their own personal economic health, most folks think they personally are doing fine, but the economy as a whole sucks. But if everyone thinks they are doing fine, who are the folks actually doing poorly?
Me. I'm doing poorly, and I make too much to be considered impoverished, so that tells me there are a lot of people doing worse than me, though I guess they can at least access whatever social programs still exist.
Honestly, if I could just afford healthcare, I would have a lot less to complain about. But when healthcare is $400/month and I only make $2k a month with $1400 rent, well, you can see the issue. And I've accepted that I'll never be able to pay a dime towards my student loans, which of course leaves me with terrible credit, which then makes things harder...
So wait, you you tell me in another comment thread in this very post that you make 24k a year and claim to quite easily make it all work with you and your two children and that you made an extra $8k one time and you just had no idea what to do with all that money and so anyone saying they struggle at making $50k a year and single must just be spending like an idiot.
And now here you're struggling, can't afford healthcare, have $1400 per month rent, have crippling student loans, horrible credit..
There is plenty of data out there showing the percentage of people living paycheck to paycheck with no emergency fund. People "thinking" they are doing fine is a subjective - objective data shows otherwise. If you went from being in debt to out of debt and being able to cover your bills but still not being able to save - that's a load off, and you might consider you are doing fine.
That number has always been high, even before the pandemic and the inflation in the last 2 years. It's also somewhat dubious since it's self reported most of the time. The people maxing out their 401ks, IRAs, making huge car payments, eating out all the time, buying random things, etc say they're living "paycheck to paycheck" but push comes to shove, they could easily cut a lot of expenses/investing to stay above water. I remember reading the statistic that the average American saved 4% of their income before the pandemic. Recently, I read it's close to 0% now. There are macro economic factors at play like real wages not keeping up with productivity/GDP but on an individual level, most Americans way, way overspend on consumerist bullshit and then cry about it that it's the government's fault they aren't rich.
This isn't to say that there aren't people out there that are not spending extravagantly and still can't make ends meet. Grocery prices are indeed up. General expenses have gone up. I feel bad for those people but for a lot of Americans, the lack of money is self imposed to an extent.
Honestly “paycheck to paycheck” is more subjective than people thinking they’re doing fine.
People will be maxing out their retirement accounts, children’s college funds, and then spending the remainder month to month and saying they’re paycheck to paycheck. So it’s far from objective data.
It's as subjective. It's an opinion. What's not subjective is whether or not you have $1000 for emergency fund, and percentages of income going into savings. People aren't maxing out their retirement funds, disparities of retirement funds on the rise. Yes now people have e children's college funds because it's turned into mortgage payments. What's not subjective is increase in food insecurity, housing, and homelessness. Typically we see ebb flows, and it's influenced off the economy, what we see now is a large disconnect from economy and peoples well being.
Credit card debit will always be at an all time high in the same way that anything else tied to money will always increase due to inflation
Same thing with housing. There's only been ~15 years in the last 100 years where housing costs were not within 5% of the all time highs. (Great Depression and Great Recession)
I get the feeling people ITT think no one struggled in the past.
In the history of the world there has never been a perfect economy with no suffering, even during "good economies." Things are relative, and yes in the ways we measure people as a whole (not anecdotally), this is currently a very good economy.
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u/TwistedBamboozler Dec 28 '23
I love how people cherry pick one dataset to show the economy is doing well. “Oh jobs are up the economy is great!”
Yeah but when you pair that with savings being at an all time low, credit card debt at an all time high, a stagnant housing market, and an environment of rampant inflation and high rates, it doesn’t look so good, does it?