• Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.netM
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    4 days ago

    I don’t make anywhere near that, where the hell do these people live?

    The $250,000-plus income bracket roughly represents the top 5% of earners in the country, according to US Census Bureau data.

    Living paycheck-to-paycheck doesn’t necessarily mean hardship, and LendingClub makes the distinction between those can pay their bills easily and those who can’t. Only a fraction of high earners – roughly one in ten – reported issues covering all their household expenses in April, according to the survey.

    That just tells me they’re just living just on the edge of their means of subsistence, I’m more than willing to bet they’d be doing a whole lot better if they simply did things like cut out avocado toast out of their splurging budget.

    • i know somebody like this. technically only >$200k, but in a LCOL area. if they had any brain whatsoever, their home they bought 15+ years would be paid off, but they are an idiot. they probably started accessing a HELOC as soon as they got a letter in the mail inviting them to do so. these are the people that the financial services sector was born to screw.

      they have 1 kid who is in their mid 20s and requires some assistance, but if its more than a few K a month, i would be shocked. they carry credit card debt, bafflingly. they buy new cars. they buy top of the line, state of the art, lifetime warranty equipment and gear for the hobbies they never do. a garage full of absolutely primo shit that has been used once. they buy expensive clothes. they purchase all Apple products and can barely check their email without someone telling them what to click/tap on. it’s all status purchases to affect the appearance of an metropolitan sophisticate.

      they are not my friend. they are a former boss of mine. if they got laid off with a month’s notice, they would be in bankruptcy court inside of 90 days having to be told by a judge that they need to sell things, downsize their spending, and that they need to make early withdrawals from their retirement account and accept the tax penalties before they can file for bankruptcy.

      their only hope is to make it to retirement age, because their retirement account has got to be massive at this point. and this has made them the most cowardly company man i have ever known, because they are just trying to get to the end, and accept all decrees from above like a total snake.

      also, the contradiction of them just “treading water” at >$200K while being upset that the lowest paid & most essential full time employees negotiated a concession for a salary floor of $30K [because housing here is fucked]… is infuriating.

    • chickentendrils [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 days ago

      Assuming it’s not total BS like many of these articles ultimately are, the 1/3 (1/10) being talked about are probably people in San Fran or Boston with a high paying job but absurd housing costs, and some edge cases with self-employed people or people laundering drug proceeds and shit.

      • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        4 days ago

        Yeah high CoL area + large mortgage payment + large student loan payment. Obviously these types are a lot more secure than someone living off minimum wage, but it’s possible for them to be saving next to nothing after their costs.

    • Dessa [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      4 days ago

      And this is why they give that avocado toast advice. Thats the advice they know helps them when expenses stack up. They simply have no concept of what paycheck to paycheck means for most people

    • Diuretic_Materialism [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 days ago

      Honestly they must be splurging on some insane shit cuz I don’t make nearly that much yet I manage to put avocado on my toast pretty regularly.

      I think most of these people are just house poor because they bought too fancy of a piece of real estate.