5 ms·

That's just objectively untrue. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/

That's just objectively untrue. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...

david927 6mo ago
- Around 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. - 71% of adults say that their monthly debt payments prevent them from saving. When we say America, we can't just mean the 20% who are ok. It has to mean the 70% who aren't. America is not rich. It used to be. It is not now.
- mathgradthrow 6mo ago
  You are responding to data about the median American.
  - david927 6mo ago
    No I'm not. I'm responding to data about median income adjusted for PPP, and not adjusted for social services such as healthcare. Big difference.
  - john_strinlai 6mo ago
    income data about the median american. income data alone does not tell a very complete story.
    - mathgradthrow 6mo ago
      Income is by far the dominant term, you're being ridiculous.
      - deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
- ipsento606 6mo ago
  > living paycheck to paycheck. This phrase is used so often, but I don't know how meaningful it is supposed to be A family might make $300,000 a year and be living "paycheck-to-paycheck" while also maxing out 401k contributions, paying a mortgage on a $2 million home, and paying $80,000 a year in private school tuition. Are we supposed to think that such a family is in worse financial shape than a family making $40,000 a year but with minimal expenses and a few months of living costs in a savings account?
  - bombcar 6mo ago
    It's somewhat of a mindset question and somewhat of a wealth question. Mr $300k may have zero months in an emergency account, but be stable in his job as a doctor and not worry about finding work - and may actually "feel poor" because he barely has any "fun money" to waste and feels he can't buy coffee in the morning. Mr $40k a year may have 6 months of expenses in the bank, saving half his income to FIRE, and know that anytime he wants to he can buy that coffee - and sometimes he does. Net worth likely says Mr $300k is worth more than Mr $40k - but that may not be true forever, and Mr $40k may be "retired" at 50 while Mr $300k is perpetually working until death. Who is rich, who has wealth, and who is happy? There are no clear answers.
    - some_random 6mo ago
      You're missing the third question which is of definitions. There's an other person Mr $65k who after all their necessary expenses has $1k left over each paycheck that they spend on dinners out, concert tickets, vacations, etc so that at the end of the month they are left with no additional savings. Are they living paycheck to paycheck?
      - kelnos 6mo ago
        Maybe? I mean, should we live in a world where the only way to create savings is by denying yourself any fun? You've picked a number, $1k, because it sounds good to support your argument, but maybe after paying for the essentials, a family has $200 left per month. Should we expect that family to never go to the movie theater, never go out to a restaurant, never splurge on a nice piece of clothing or jewelry, never do anything fun at all? Do we think it's ok for people to have to live like that? So sure, maybe if they spend that $200 on fun stuff, it's not "living paycheck to paycheck". But maybe that's just a bad metric, or just too poorly-defined to be a reasonable way to measure anything.
- knubie 6mo ago
  Most people in America don't live paycheck to paycheck or rack up massive debt because they're poor. They do it because they're financially illiterate, over-consume, or both. A few watch-through's of Caleb Hammer's financial audit show will disabuse you of this belief.
- some_random 6mo ago
  Fun fact, that's also untrue or at least dubious. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/may/16/facebook-posts/though-many-americans-live-paycheck-paycheck-some-/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/may/16/facebook-p...
  - JKCalhoun 6mo ago
    "Data from 2020 through 2022 found that between 50% and 63% of Americans report living paycheck to paycheck." (Well, that's a relief.)
    - some_random 6mo ago
      One bullet point down: "But there is no clear definition for the phrase "paycheck to paycheck," so people should be skeptical of statistics based on the concept, one economist said."
- jandrewrogers 6mo ago
  > Around 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Not for any meaningful definition of "living paycheck to paycheck". Per Federal Reserve studies, the percentage of the population with no excess income after paying for necessary expenses is 10-15%. That's still a lot of people but it isn't 76%. For everyone else, it is a lifestyle choice. Per the BLS, the median household has ~$1,000 leftover every month after all ordinary (not necessary) expenses. That includes rent, car payments, healthcare, etc. Americans have a crazy amount of discretionary income compared to the rest of the world.
  - david927 6mo ago
    71% of adults say that their monthly debt payments prevent them from saving. So why don't they take it out of that thousand they have at the end of each month? America is suffering economically and I don't think we help anything when we pretend it's not.
    - nradov 6mo ago
      No one forced those people to take on a $1000 monthly car loan payment.
- partiallypro 6mo ago
  America is very very rich, the average person is much wealthier than the average European. 76% of Americans do not live paycheck to paycheck. That is a self reported stat and not reliable. It's a media sensationalist headline grabber which virtually every economist ignores. People don't like saying America is rich because it defies their beliefs, but the actual stats don't lie. Every American I know that has moved to Europe (and I have lived there as well, in Munich) moved there with, shock...American money and savings. So they don't actually get the initial start many Europeans do and it clouds their view to think that's just how all Europeans live. That doesn't guarantee that this will always be true, but given Europe's current trajectory, even with the US's many shortcomings...it's hard to say Europe will catch up anytime soon.
  - some_random 6mo ago
    One quick correction, it's not a self reported stat, it's a stat from a viral tiktok that comes from maybe a 2013 survey on a personal finance site.
    - bombcar 6mo ago
      > 2013 survey on a personal finance site E.g, self-reported but with TikTok noise added. All of this stuff tries to be factual and scientific about something that is a feeling, really - if you're $80k in debt (not that I know ANYONE like that no, sirreeeeee!) and have no plan and don't even know how much you owe each month, you're going to be stressed and pissed and always surprised. If you're in the exact same situation but have it all documented and budgeted and planned for (what I call "knowing exactly how fucked you are") you'll be much better off mentally even if not financially (at first, that will follow).
    - hunterpayne 6mo ago
      So it has selection bias in addition to the bias from self reporting. Got it. Your stats professor is crying somewhere.
  - bean469 6mo ago
    > 76% of Americans do not live paycheck to paycheck. That is a self reported stat and not reliable. Do you have any sources for this? The reason why I personally don't believe your claim is because every single US citizen I know lives paycheck-to-paycheck, quite literally
- WalterBright 6mo ago
  > Around 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. A lot of people are "see money spend money". Regardless of their paycheck amount, they find ways to spend it all. This does not mean they are poor. Pro football players, for example, are famous for quickly spending their $millions into bankruptcy.
CorrectHorseBat 6mo ago
Median doesn't say anything about the extremes and income isn't wealth.
dv_dt 6mo ago
While it's a key indicator, even PPP adjusted income metrics are insufficient to compare happiness. e.g even if PPP may adjust for some aspects of outsized US health care costs, the risk and unreliability of access and affordability of US healthcare is not reflected in median income values.
- some_random 6mo ago
  Yeah I totally agree that income and happiness are not interchangeable, I'm just really tired of people lying about objective facts.
  - dv_dt 6mo ago
    I have no quibble with the objective facts, but we are talking about happiness, and answers are being returned about wealth, and the discussion was talking about how wealth does not equate to happiness in some measures - particularly in terms of factors of life stability, like reasonable access to healthcare...
    - some_random 6mo ago
      That's super cool, in this particular comment thread that's not what we're talking about.
  - david927 6mo ago
    Every single court case is two sides bringing forward only "objective facts" by definition. It's not that one side brings lies and the other facts. They both bring objective facts. So why does it always end with the judgement falling on one side? Because facts do not a complete case make.
  - hunterpayne 6mo ago
    If we outlawed that, every single politician and journalist would be in prison for the rest of their natural lives along with most of the people who follow politics too much. Perhaps that's a good idea, perhaps not.
JKCalhoun 6mo ago
I see Norway on that list (no surprise). What is so sad is how much better it could be in the U.S.… but for some odd notion that Billionaires and Corporations are thought to owe so little and the people of this country thought to deserve so little.
- some_random 6mo ago
  If only the US was a petrostate, that would solve all our problems.
  - eloisant 6mo ago
    I can't tell if you're sarcastic or not! You're aware that the US is the biggest oil producer in the world?
    - Geee 6mo ago
      Not per capita. Norway produces roughly 6x more oil than the US per capita. Also, TIL that Guyana is the world's top oil producer per capita. See: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-prod-per-capita?country=USA~SAU~KWT~ARE~OWID_EUR~NOR~GUY~QAT https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-prod-per-capita?count...
      - themanualstates 6mo ago
        You're forgetting the us is #1 in producing natural gas, at 1,069,000m3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g... Russia and Iran are the second and third largest suppliers, but their goods are sanctioned. They also 'only' produce half / a quarter of US output. Also contrast this with, China (#4) and Qatar (#6) that produce 258 and 170 billion m3 respectively.
    - bigtex88 5mo ago
      "Petrostate" meaning that the proceeds of the petroleum we sell is turned around and used for the betterment of the entire state. I think it's clear what OP was saying and you're being purposefully obtuse about this. It means nothing for the US to be the biggest oil producer in the world when the proceeds and riches of "producing" that oil are hoarded by a small number of oil barons.
iso1631 6mo ago
Slightly exaggerated The top 10 individually have more wealth than Iceland, which is 83rd. The top 25 combined have a wealth of $3.2t, more than Belgium, which is 20th.
- some_random 6mo ago
  The wealth of the top 100 individuals is not the claim, the claim is that the rest of the nation is actually poor if you don't include them, which is total nonsense.
abraxas 6mo ago
This is not terribly informative until expenses and safety nets are taken into account. Someone living in the Netherlands may have that 20% lower median income but being able to rely on public healthcare and get around without a personal vehicle does wonders for one's sense of peace and agency. That likely counts a lot more towards personal wellbeing than the addtional dollars in your account especially when health concerns can turn into financial concerns quite quickly.
- some_random 6mo ago
  The comment I am responding to is "because America's not rich; like 100 people here just have more money than most countries" not whatever you think I am responding to.

That's just objectively untrue. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...

david927 6mo ago

- Around 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. - 71% of adults say that their monthly debt payments prevent them from saving. When we say America, we can't just mean the 20% who are ok. It has to mean the 70% who aren't. America is not rich. It used to be. It is not now.

mathgradthrow 6mo ago
You are responding to data about the median American.
- david927 6mo ago
  No I'm not. I'm responding to data about median income adjusted for PPP, and not adjusted for social services such as healthcare. Big difference.
- john_strinlai 6mo ago
  income data about the median american. income data alone does not tell a very complete story.
  - mathgradthrow 6mo ago
    Income is by far the dominant term, you're being ridiculous.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
ipsento606 6mo ago
> living paycheck to paycheck. This phrase is used so often, but I don't know how meaningful it is supposed to be A family might make $300,000 a year and be living "paycheck-to-paycheck" while also maxing out 401k contributions, paying a mortgage on a $2 million home, and paying $80,000 a year in private school tuition. Are we supposed to think that such a family is in worse financial shape than a family making $40,000 a year but with minimal expenses and a few months of living costs in a savings account?
- bombcar 6mo ago
  It's somewhat of a mindset question and somewhat of a wealth question. Mr $300k may have zero months in an emergency account, but be stable in his job as a doctor and not worry about finding work - and may actually "feel poor" because he barely has any "fun money" to waste and feels he can't buy coffee in the morning. Mr $40k a year may have 6 months of expenses in the bank, saving half his income to FIRE, and know that anytime he wants to he can buy that coffee - and sometimes he does. Net worth likely says Mr $300k is worth more than Mr $40k - but that may not be true forever, and Mr $40k may be "retired" at 50 while Mr $300k is perpetually working until death. Who is rich, who has wealth, and who is happy? There are no clear answers.
  - some_random 6mo ago
    You're missing the third question which is of definitions. There's an other person Mr $65k who after all their necessary expenses has $1k left over each paycheck that they spend on dinners out, concert tickets, vacations, etc so that at the end of the month they are left with no additional savings. Are they living paycheck to paycheck?
    - kelnos 6mo ago
      Maybe? I mean, should we live in a world where the only way to create savings is by denying yourself any fun? You've picked a number, $1k, because it sounds good to support your argument, but maybe after paying for the essentials, a family has $200 left per month. Should we expect that family to never go to the movie theater, never go out to a restaurant, never splurge on a nice piece of clothing or jewelry, never do anything fun at all? Do we think it's ok for people to have to live like that? So sure, maybe if they spend that $200 on fun stuff, it's not "living paycheck to paycheck". But maybe that's just a bad metric, or just too poorly-defined to be a reasonable way to measure anything.
knubie 6mo ago
Most people in America don't live paycheck to paycheck or rack up massive debt because they're poor. They do it because they're financially illiterate, over-consume, or both. A few watch-through's of Caleb Hammer's financial audit show will disabuse you of this belief.
some_random 6mo ago
Fun fact, that's also untrue or at least dubious. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/may/16/facebook-posts/though-many-americans-live-paycheck-paycheck-some-/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/may/16/facebook-p...
- JKCalhoun 6mo ago
  "Data from 2020 through 2022 found that between 50% and 63% of Americans report living paycheck to paycheck." (Well, that's a relief.)
  - some_random 6mo ago
    One bullet point down: "But there is no clear definition for the phrase "paycheck to paycheck," so people should be skeptical of statistics based on the concept, one economist said."
jandrewrogers 6mo ago
> Around 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Not for any meaningful definition of "living paycheck to paycheck". Per Federal Reserve studies, the percentage of the population with no excess income after paying for necessary expenses is 10-15%. That's still a lot of people but it isn't 76%. For everyone else, it is a lifestyle choice. Per the BLS, the median household has ~$1,000 leftover every month after all ordinary (not necessary) expenses. That includes rent, car payments, healthcare, etc. Americans have a crazy amount of discretionary income compared to the rest of the world.
- david927 6mo ago
  71% of adults say that their monthly debt payments prevent them from saving. So why don't they take it out of that thousand they have at the end of each month? America is suffering economically and I don't think we help anything when we pretend it's not.
  - nradov 6mo ago
    No one forced those people to take on a $1000 monthly car loan payment.
partiallypro 6mo ago
America is very very rich, the average person is much wealthier than the average European. 76% of Americans do not live paycheck to paycheck. That is a self reported stat and not reliable. It's a media sensationalist headline grabber which virtually every economist ignores. People don't like saying America is rich because it defies their beliefs, but the actual stats don't lie. Every American I know that has moved to Europe (and I have lived there as well, in Munich) moved there with, shock...American money and savings. So they don't actually get the initial start many Europeans do and it clouds their view to think that's just how all Europeans live. That doesn't guarantee that this will always be true, but given Europe's current trajectory, even with the US's many shortcomings...it's hard to say Europe will catch up anytime soon.
- some_random 6mo ago
  One quick correction, it's not a self reported stat, it's a stat from a viral tiktok that comes from maybe a 2013 survey on a personal finance site.
  - bombcar 6mo ago
    > 2013 survey on a personal finance site E.g, self-reported but with TikTok noise added. All of this stuff tries to be factual and scientific about something that is a feeling, really - if you're $80k in debt (not that I know ANYONE like that no, sirreeeeee!) and have no plan and don't even know how much you owe each month, you're going to be stressed and pissed and always surprised. If you're in the exact same situation but have it all documented and budgeted and planned for (what I call "knowing exactly how fucked you are") you'll be much better off mentally even if not financially (at first, that will follow).
  - hunterpayne 6mo ago
    So it has selection bias in addition to the bias from self reporting. Got it. Your stats professor is crying somewhere.
- bean469 6mo ago
  > 76% of Americans do not live paycheck to paycheck. That is a self reported stat and not reliable. Do you have any sources for this? The reason why I personally don't believe your claim is because every single US citizen I know lives paycheck-to-paycheck, quite literally
WalterBright 6mo ago
> Around 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. A lot of people are "see money spend money". Regardless of their paycheck amount, they find ways to spend it all. This does not mean they are poor. Pro football players, for example, are famous for quickly spending their $millions into bankruptcy.

CorrectHorseBat 6mo ago

Median doesn't say anything about the extremes and income isn't wealth.

dv_dt 6mo ago

While it's a key indicator, even PPP adjusted income metrics are insufficient to compare happiness. e.g even if PPP may adjust for some aspects of outsized US health care costs, the risk and unreliability of access and affordability of US healthcare is not reflected in median income values.

some_random 6mo ago
Yeah I totally agree that income and happiness are not interchangeable, I'm just really tired of people lying about objective facts.
- dv_dt 6mo ago
  I have no quibble with the objective facts, but we are talking about happiness, and answers are being returned about wealth, and the discussion was talking about how wealth does not equate to happiness in some measures - particularly in terms of factors of life stability, like reasonable access to healthcare...
  - some_random 6mo ago
    That's super cool, in this particular comment thread that's not what we're talking about.
- david927 6mo ago
  Every single court case is two sides bringing forward only "objective facts" by definition. It's not that one side brings lies and the other facts. They both bring objective facts. So why does it always end with the judgement falling on one side? Because facts do not a complete case make.
- hunterpayne 6mo ago
  If we outlawed that, every single politician and journalist would be in prison for the rest of their natural lives along with most of the people who follow politics too much. Perhaps that's a good idea, perhaps not.

JKCalhoun 6mo ago

I see Norway on that list (no surprise). What is so sad is how much better it could be in the U.S.… but for some odd notion that Billionaires and Corporations are thought to owe so little and the people of this country thought to deserve so little.

some_random 6mo ago
If only the US was a petrostate, that would solve all our problems.
- eloisant 6mo ago
  I can't tell if you're sarcastic or not! You're aware that the US is the biggest oil producer in the world?
  - Geee 6mo ago
    Not per capita. Norway produces roughly 6x more oil than the US per capita. Also, TIL that Guyana is the world's top oil producer per capita. See: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-prod-per-capita?country=USA~SAU~KWT~ARE~OWID_EUR~NOR~GUY~QAT https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-prod-per-capita?count...
    - themanualstates 6mo ago
      You're forgetting the us is #1 in producing natural gas, at 1,069,000m3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g... Russia and Iran are the second and third largest suppliers, but their goods are sanctioned. They also 'only' produce half / a quarter of US output. Also contrast this with, China (#4) and Qatar (#6) that produce 258 and 170 billion m3 respectively.
  - bigtex88 5mo ago
    "Petrostate" meaning that the proceeds of the petroleum we sell is turned around and used for the betterment of the entire state. I think it's clear what OP was saying and you're being purposefully obtuse about this. It means nothing for the US to be the biggest oil producer in the world when the proceeds and riches of "producing" that oil are hoarded by a small number of oil barons.

iso1631 6mo ago

Slightly exaggerated The top 10 individually have more wealth than Iceland, which is 83rd. The top 25 combined have a wealth of $3.2t, more than Belgium, which is 20th.

some_random 6mo ago
The wealth of the top 100 individuals is not the claim, the claim is that the rest of the nation is actually poor if you don't include them, which is total nonsense.

abraxas 6mo ago

This is not terribly informative until expenses and safety nets are taken into account. Someone living in the Netherlands may have that 20% lower median income but being able to rely on public healthcare and get around without a personal vehicle does wonders for one's sense of peace and agency. That likely counts a lot more towards personal wellbeing than the addtional dollars in your account especially when health concerns can turn into financial concerns quite quickly.

some_random 6mo ago
The comment I am responding to is "because America's not rich; like 100 people here just have more money than most countries" not whatever you think I am responding to.