Unfortunately the data is matched against the poverty line which is a bad measure when the cost of living is significantly higher than the poverty line. You'd

Unfortunately the data is matched against the poverty line which is a bad measure when the cost of living is significantly higher than the poverty line. You'd probably see a much larger statistically significant move towards the negative if you accounted for many of the commonly known issues such as college graduations. Several of the milestones are measured in such a way that anyone taking a minimum wage job would meet several of those milestones since the poverty level is 13,590. That won't even cover rent let alone food, 150% of that is 20,385, after tax 18,346 net, not enough for food and rent so clearly not financially independent but counted as such in this study.