• fpslem@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    A frustratingly empty article. Why are they struggling to “make ends meet”? What ends? If it’s housing, this is a housing story. If it’s high auto loan debt, that’s a mother matter. If it’s not housing and it’s accrued consumer debt, that’s a different matter.

    They never say, so there isn’t much to conclude from this piece.

    • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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      4 months ago

      They’re extrapolating trends from just over ONE year of data. The survey was started in 2023, which means statements like this ring very hollow:

      Second, the year-over-year change in worry for this population is large and significant. In April 2023, 20.7 percent of those who could currently pay all of their bills were worried about the next six months; one year later, 26.2 percent reported worries, with nearly every demographic group showing large and significant increases as well. We did not observe such a year-over-year increase in our previous report (comparing January 2023 with January 2024).

      And from that we get Matt Egan’s overarching conclusion that “wealthy Americans are struggling to make ends meet”, which conflicts with the findings that only 6.9% of people earning more than $150k/yr are reporting that they can’t currently make ends meet (6% of those making more than $100k/yr). Or, in other words, 93.1% of people earning more than $150k/yr can currently make ends meet. (someone tell Egan!) But the surveyors go on to claim that it’s a significant uptick from 3.4% a year ago, which is true (yay!). You know what it’s not a significant uptick from? The very next survey (i.e. July), which tallied a 6% rate of not being able to make ends meet. That number then fell to 3.0% in October before jumping again in January, then again in April.

      Those numbers go up significantly when forecasting out 0-6 months, and then 7-12 months. The numbers for high earners go up to 32.5% and 33%, respectively. You know what’s happening in just under 6 months? A pretty significant election! And to what do these high earners attribute their inability to make ends meet? Job insecurity? Medical expenses? Global instability? Inflation?

      Who the fuck knows?! The survey is decidedly silent on that front. But that didn’t stop Matt Egan from scrapping together the most fear-inducing, clickbait headline he could muster for our next dose of doom-fuel.

      • sunzu@kbin.run
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        4 months ago

        Why do we still take fake news “surveys” at face value?

        • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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          4 months ago

          Regurgitation pieces require no formal journalistic training, can be produced with almost no research time, can be cranked out en masse, and can be subjectively framed to grab eyeballs because there’s no entity able to claim libel if it’s misrepresented. It’s yellow journalism, plain and simple, and gullible rubes lap that shit up without a second’s hesitation because it tells them something saucy that makes them feel vindicated.

    • dan1101@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Yeah people tend to spend what they make. Larger incomes are spent on bigger houses and nicer cars. But larger incomes have more wiggle room to cut back and afford the basics if they have to.