The "one missed paycheck away" is cited a lot, but it's not entirely false, if a bit of a hyperbole.
The majority of Americans (recent estimates I believe are around 60%) have no savings, and live paycheck to paycheck. So while not exactly "one missed paycheck away" it's pretty close. More accurate would be to say "Most Americans are one crisis away..."
Median weekly earnings for full-time workers in the US was $1,196 in Q2 - so, half of Americans make even less than that (~4,700/month). That's not a lot, and in a lot of areas of the country, that doesn't leave much room to save much of anything, especially if you have kids and need childcare.
Going off the BLS consumer expenditure survey from 2023 (most recent one I could find), average spent on housing was $25k/year or 2119/month, almost half the median monthly earnings. Just housing. Factor in food, transportation, healthcare, utilities and it's not hard to see how people can, and are, struggling, and are effectively one mishap from falling too far behind to catch up.
Although Median household income in the US is the more relevant figure, especially for things like housing costs, and that's at ~80k.
While most Americans don't have "emergency savings" (heck, I don't), most of the credible studies more realistically peg it as 25% of American adults or 1 in 4.
Yeah fair enough, household income paints a better picture.
Even so, $80k household isn't a pretty picture with today's housing and food costs except for the most LCoL areas, and in those the income is going to be considerably lower. To afford the US today, we need to be closer to $80k+ individually rather than for the whole household.
The "one missed paycheck away" is cited a lot, but it's not entirely false, if a bit of a hyperbole.
The majority of Americans (recent estimates I believe are around 60%) have no savings, and live paycheck to paycheck. So while not exactly "one missed paycheck away" it's pretty close. More accurate would be to say "Most Americans are one crisis away..."
Median weekly earnings for full-time workers in the US was $1,196 in Q2 - so, half of Americans make even less than that (~4,700/month). That's not a lot, and in a lot of areas of the country, that doesn't leave much room to save much of anything, especially if you have kids and need childcare.
Going off the BLS consumer expenditure survey from 2023 (most recent one I could find), average spent on housing was $25k/year or 2119/month, almost half the median monthly earnings. Just housing. Factor in food, transportation, healthcare, utilities and it's not hard to see how people can, and are, struggling, and are effectively one mishap from falling too far behind to catch up.