Negativity and doomerism is all they see. They rarely add context, such as in this piece of journalism’ish: How the middle class collapsed and 78% live paycheck to paycheck

For the past 25 years, these surveys always find 60-70+% say they live paycheck-to-paycheck. In 2025, per Fortune, over 40% of those earning $300k to $500k, and over 40% of those earning more than $500k per year say they live paycheck-to-paycheck.

At $500k/year, Americans – in general – have a spending problem as they’ve supersized their lifestyles. Most Americans have a spending problem – having just seen the Thanksgiving weekend shopping mania as people acquire more stuff that will go unused, stockpiled in boxes in their oversized garages.

Yes, there are those that truly have income limitations – but now we have claims that a $140k income level is the poverty level as social media pundit Michael Greene claimed in November of 2025. (The “$140,000 poverty line” is very silly – by Noah Smith and The Myth of the $140,000 Poverty Line – by Tyler Cowen)

That means up to 85% of US households live in poverty. What then is the definition of poverty? A 2400 sq ft, 2.5 bath, 2 car garage with 2 SUVs in the driveway? A job and health insurance? Smart phones for every family member? $300/month on broadband Internet and streaming services? Going out to eat 3 or more times per week?

But why stop there? We’ve got this utter nonsense too:

He took an MIT living wage calculator and arbitrarily doubled it’s output – and neglected to note that 50% of assumed requirements is for “wants” and “savings” (before he double the output).

Who promotes this nonsense? Journalists and social media pundits. Journalism has become home to the mentally ill and depressed – permanently stuck on everything is awful. There is nothing good in the world. The US is the worst country in the history of the world, if you believe the doomer media. Journalism has descended into mental illness – journalism’ish.

More Everything is Awful: Gen Z wants to retire in their 50s, not 60s. Good luck in today’s economy

There is no topic that a journalist’ish cannot turn into negativity.