The one piece that I had a hard time understanding, is there is a range of income for the group of people affected. Some make $10 an hour, others make $15, yet

The one piece that I had a hard time understanding, is there is a range of income for the group of people affected. Some make $10 an hour, others make $15, yet they are both in the same boat. If the person making $15 an hour lived like they were making $10 then in 2 units of time they have 1 unit of time of expenses saved (i.e, in 2 months, they have an extra 1 month of their expenses saved). But then I came to the realization that real life doesn't work that way, even looking at my (lack of) savings through the years. That is because life is full of stress, and throwing money at the causes of stress is sometimes the only way to reduce that stress. For example, having a teenager that has a drug issue, if you don't have the extra money then you deal with it, but if you do have extra you can spend it on therapy which may help thereby reducing stress. And the various stress items really don't go away until you are bringing in about 70K or so a year -- at that point you can finally afford to pay off various debts, build an emergency fund, drive a reliable car, and live in a slightly better neighborhood.