[lbotos]

Someone could be Making 250k and absolutely be living paycheck to paycheck.

Yes, I agree with your sentiment that its "different" than being "poor" but that's the media for ya.

[hellotomyrars]

I understand the point though. Living paycheck to paycheck making 250K is either a gross mismanagement of finances, or a dishonest view of them.

The guy making 250K a year isn’t worried about not being able to put food on the table. But maybe he has a monthly car payment that is more than the person making 28k a year pays per month in rent.

[darth_avocado]

250k in NYC or SF Bay Area is really 150k after taxes. After insurance and other usual expenses, 10k/month. Rents in these cities can be expensive and if you have dependents then 10k suddenly is not a lot of money. Its not paycheck to paycheck always, but can totally be.

[red-iron-pine]

Enough space for a family means something like $5k-7k/month rent. Even with 10k/mo the income rapidly vanishes. Housing and income reform is deeply needed nationwide.

[cj]

If it’s just a survey, I would answer “yes” to living paycheck to paycheck.

But that’s only because I’m automatically investing 70% of my paycheck so I never have more than a few weeks of expenses in cash.

I can imagine getting very biased results depending on how to survey is worded.

In my case, an unexpected expense just means I take a short term margin loan against my portfolio (at an insane interest rate) until my next paycheck.

[maxerickson]

Having resources you can draw on (an asset you can take a margin loan against is a resource you can draw on) is exactly what "paycheck to paycheck" doesn't mean.

[cj]

I agree.

The point of my comment was that wording of survey questions can result in biased results.

[mikestew]

"I have so much excess income that I invest most of it".

I don't think you're grokking the common definition of "paycheck-to-paycheck", or are willfully ignoring it to make a point (and doing so poorly).

[cj]

> to make a point (and doing so poorly).

The point I’m trying to make is bias in surveys

[michaelt]

If that's true of 36% of them then the definition of "paycheck to paycheck" is so broad as to be meaningless.

Woe is me, after paying for my eight children's horse riding lessons, getting an opera house named after me, and paying for the handmade rigging that my yacht's crew say urgently needs to be replaced, I'm barely making ends meet! Why won't Biden do something about the outrageous increases in the cost of helicopter fuel?

Am I living paycheck to paycheck?

[lbotos]

People making 250k are not getting opera houses named after them :D

[michaelt]

Not with helicopter fuel as expensive as it is, you're right.

[kitsunesoba]

And are very likely living in high CoL areas where a large chunk of that is swallowed by housing, transportation, etc. It's functionally similar to a much lower salary in a lower CoL area.

That said even if someone in a low CoL area is pulling 250k, it's not "horseriding lessons eight kids and a yacht" money, not unless the individual/couple in question is drowning in debt.

Don't get me wrong, $250k isn't a "struggling" salary anywhere but it's also not past the threshold where one can stop being responsible with money and blow it on wealthy people things on the regular, especially if that's joint income from a couple with kids.