In the parlance of my country, if someone is "living paycheck to paycheck" they're a member of the working poor, people with no savings, desperately fighting to keep their head above water.
There might be a handful of people earning that much who are in a difficult financial position - divorced airline pilots with expensive alimony payments, perhaps? - but it is extremely hard to believe that 36% of people earning 4x the US median income are the working poor.
On the other hand, the 36% number would make much more sense if the survey had asked people "Do you depend on your salary to pay for your living expenses?" or "Do you have enough savings to pay for 3-6 months of basic living costs?" i.e. much more expansive definitions of what it means to live paycheck-to-paycheck.
> it is extremely hard to believe that 36% of people earning 4x the US median income are the working poor.
I don't find that hard to believe at all, at least in the US. That income bracket tends overextend themselves and carry too much debt. A shockingly high percentage of people in it will be bankrupt in 5 years.
On this site, the null hypothesis is whatever we already believe. When we see evidence of an alternative hypothesis, we find ways to throw that evidence in the trash. Small sample sizes, replication crisis, misleading headlines, research on mice, etc. are all ways to ignore whatever evidence we want.
In short, we are always right, research be damned.
This pretty much highlights what I'm saying. Regardless of how strong or weak this research is, it won't be scrutinized by viewers here, because it confirms what they want to believe.
Here is a survey saying 36% of Americans making >$200,000 are living paycheck to paycheck: https://www.lendingclub.com/asset/ls/cms/media-center/12th-p...
There might be a handful of people earning that much who are in a difficult financial position - divorced airline pilots with expensive alimony payments, perhaps? - but it is extremely hard to believe that 36% of people earning 4x the US median income are the working poor.
On the other hand, the 36% number would make much more sense if the survey had asked people "Do you depend on your salary to pay for your living expenses?" or "Do you have enough savings to pay for 3-6 months of basic living costs?" i.e. much more expansive definitions of what it means to live paycheck-to-paycheck.