64% Of Americans Living Paycheck To Paycheck As Inflation Squeezes Country

Inflation is squeezing everyone in the United States right now, but the worst impacts are being felt by those at the bottom end of the income spectrum - but economic pain is spreading quickly. A new report has found that 64% of American households are now living paycheck to paycheck, and that includes a good percentage of households making 6-figure incomes. Things don't appear to be getting any better, and that will only lead to bad political policies, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

According to a new analysis, 64% of American households are now living paycheck to paycheck, even though over the last year, wages have risen by a historically high 5.1%, that is a huge year over year increase in wages here in the United States. The problem is, inflation has risen even faster than that. Typically on a given year, you're looking at inflation between one and 3%, three being like kind of the high end. Well, we're at about 8%. So when wages only go up by 5%, you still have that 3% gap. So people able to afford less, even though they're making more money. Add to that, the recent massive spike in gas prices and suddenly it becomes very clear why 64% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. But don't worry, folks. It's actually not just those at the bottom end of the income spectrum. This report also says that 48% of households who make over six figures per year are also living paycheck to paycheck.

So about half of the people making more than a hundred thousand dollars a year, well over the median household income for the United States, half of them can't even afford things right now, paycheck to paycheck. It's inflation, it's gas prices. We just got the jobs report, right? That was a huge, huge jobs report. Everything looks good on paper, but it's not and that's why it drives me crazy, by the way, to see these liberals out there telling us like we should be celebrating this economy. No you shouldn't. You shouldn't be celebrating anything about this economy because it sucks. Oh sure, we, we've got new jobs. Oh sure, wages are going up. But if those are the only two determining factors that you're using, then you aren't qualified to talk about the economy. Things are really, really bad for a lot of people, for most people, for the majority of people in this country, things are terrible. So don't sit there and act like this economy is going well and oh, Democrats need to be hyping this up.

No they shouldn't. They should be trying to figure out how to fix these things because if we can get inflation under control, under control, if we can get gas prices back down and move people to renewable energy, increase fuel standards for vehicles, which Donald Trump officially killed in the year 2020, let's not forget about his role there. Then things would look better. Then it would be a kickin' economy for a lot of people. But until we do those things, we cannot say that this is a good economy or that this economy is working. People are suffering. They're getting screwed over by forces far beyond their control. That's what the economy really looks like today. It's not all roses and rainbows and unicorns. It's people struggling to have money left in their bank account by the time their paycheck hits. Even people in the top 10% of income earners are having a, a tough time making ends meet right now. And that should tell you everything you need to know about how bad the economy really is right now.