There is a lot of elasticity in American expenses, per both US BLS and Federal Reserve studies. The percentage of households that struggle with necessary expens

There is a lot of elasticity in American expenses, per both US BLS and Federal Reserve studies. The percentage of households that struggle with necessary expenses is ~12%. That is still a large number but a lot more plausible. I would take “struggling to make ends meet” with a large grain of salt. The 38.5% threshold in the article is perhaps not coincidentally right around the percentile where Americans have excess income even after accounting for all ordinary lifestyle expenses (iPhones, nice cars, etc). The median US household has ~$12,000/year in income leftover after all of these expenses.