The economy is fine! We just have… money dysmorphia. /s

The gaslighting is at warp speed now.

  • tal@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    In fact, more than half of Americans earning more than $100,000 a year say they live paycheck to paycheck, another report by LendingClub found.

    I think it’d be interesting to see what would happen if some states had personal finance classes in their curriculum and some didn’t, see if there is a measurable impact down the line.

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Personal finance classes probably would have a non-negligble impact on the people that just mindless spend and don’t save for retirement etc.

      But I would think also that the wildly inflated housing and child care costs and the inelastic demand between the two means just an unexpected health emergency or unanticipated home maintenance spending would leave a family in debt and living paycheck to paycheck until its paid off.

    • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      The problem isn’t 40+ years of stagnant wages and corporate greed, it’s because people need classes on how to be poor correctly.

      That’s how you sound right now.

      • tal@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        The article stated that half of the American population earning over $100k/year lives paycheck-to-paycheck. They’re spending everything they’re making, aren’t directing funds towards building a cushion.

        I am sure that there are some pathological cases where a individual winds up compelled to do that. But I think that it’s pretty safe to say that rather more than half of the $100k+/year population can probably manage to put some level of funds away.

        You can pull in a whole lot more than that and still go through it.

        https://bestlifeonline.com/broke-celebrities/

        Though Depp is undoubtedly one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood, the fame and subsequent fortune accumulated by the star led to his ultimate downfall. According to his agents, he’s earned around $650 million dollars throughout the course of his career—most of which he has already spent.

        Building up a cushion and having it placed somewhere that’s providing an effective return is also part of that, having some idea of how much one should put away and how much one should spend, make moves that make sense relative to the tax incentives that the government puts out for people. And while the US provides a number of programs and incentives that reward people for building a cushion, my impression is that it doesn’t do a fantastic job of walking people through them and what makes sense to do in relative terms or where one should aim to be. My school certainly didn’t cover any of managing one’s finances over one’s life, what’s a reasonable thing to do. The only thing I recall them ever covering as regards personal finance was how to write a check and how to balance a checkbook. As I recall, pretty much everything I picked up in my early life was from my parents. I’m going to bet that not everyone’s parents does that. So…what happens to people where that doesn’t happen? Okay, maybe some people are self-driven, start from a base of zero information and go out and dig up material online (and manage to filter out some of the bad advice). I bet that that’s a long way from everyone, though.

        • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          Pretty shitty of you to compare the spending habits of celebrities with normal people, there isn’t an intellectually honest bone in your body and I legitimately don’t understand how you can look at yourself in the mirror every day.

    • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      7 months ago

      Well, my own observation shows me that most people don’t know the first thing about basic finances: compounding interest, budgeting, critical thinking when seeing advertisements, and the cost of take-out vs making dinner are some examples.

      For gods sakes, check your credit card and bank balances once in a while!. smh.