Breaking news: in one of the most productive countries / economies in the entire history of humanity, the majority of people creating that productivity do not get to enjoy the rewards of that productivity.
but someone who would have to sell some stocks or stop retirement contributions might also think of themselves as “paycheck to paycheck.”
Oh, like I had to do when I moved to another apartment? I had to wipe out my (tiny) Roth IRA just to pay the deposit. My wife had to wipe hers out just to pay the movers and all the other BS fees. We now have no retirement savings and haven’t since we moved six months ago. We both had to stop contributing to our IRAs in order to continue paying the bills. We’re not even paycheck to paycheck at this point, we’re at month to month.