[aetherson]

I mean, that's $780 per year. I don't know what the, er, lowest hexile in the UK makes, but surely it's no better than $30k per year, right? And in fact probably much worse.

So they'd struggle if they suddenly had expenses that were 2.5% of their income or more? That doesn't seem revelatory.

[aninhumer]

Really? I think the framing that 1 in 6 people don't have at least 2.5% of slack in their finances is equally damning.

[aetherson]

As others have noted, it's not "will collapse into a disaster," it's "struggle."

It is not news to me that in general, relatively poor people do not have a ton of slack in their finances. If it's news to you, well... okay. But I think you just weren't paying attention.

[petercooper]

For a single adult, second decile was £11,300 in 2014 (roughly $15K now, a bit more at the time).

[aetherson]

So, right, something in the general vicinity of 5% of their yearly income.

Again, it doesn't seem really surprising that lots of relatively poor people would "struggle" with additional expenses equal to around 5% of their income.