My goodness, that sounds bad. Except it has been that way pretty much forever: 61% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck even as inflation cools (cnbc.com)

News writers get bored and resurface this story every few months – just 4 or 5 months since the last go around.

Claims the figure remains “stubbornly high” even though it is 3 percentile points lower than what she reported in March of 2022!

61% is even on the low end of the usual survey result! Economy: “Living paycheck to paycheck” has not changed much – Coldstreams

The media loves context free reporting, devoid of historical context – that way they can spin the story any way they wish!

Per CNBC’s reporter bio, she has a BA in political science and art history, and an MA in international and public affairs. Per her LinkedIn bio, she has a BA in political science (Johns Hopkins) and an MPA (Columbia), “media and American politics”. (MPA usually refers to Masters in Public Administration and that is listed in the Columbia program.) She has been accused of agenda-driven reporting possibly due to seeing the world through the eyes of someone who attended elite universities. A great many of her stories fall into the Doomer camp – things are bad and getting worse. But that is normal for all journalism.