I don't think we could say that at all. Only 40% isn't only unimpressive, it's depressing. The ideal would be 100%.

> I think if you ask the question "are you worried about finances?" of course most people are going to say "yes."

I think that's a safe bet at the moment, considering most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck at the moment.

More to the point, bad doesn't become good even if you can't do better. 40% is bad. If 40% was the best we can do, it would still be bad.

... which doesn't really say that much; I'll leave it to someone on your side of the Atlantic to find historical census data (eg https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/wealth.html ) and cross index it against historical income data (eg https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-27... ) to determine if —with a presumably consistent methodology— there have been any significant developments in who is living on what they have and who on what they have coming.

From the linked report:

>The share of consumers living paycheck to paycheck currently sits at

>60%, unchanged compared to October 2022 At 19% in October 2023,

>the share of consumers living paycheck to paycheck and struggling

>to pay bills has also remained stable relative to last year Among

>income brackets, 76% of consumers earning less than $50,000 annu-

>ally lived paycheck to paycheck as of October 2023, as did 65% of

>those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 and 42% of consum-

>ers earning more than $100,000 These are also similar to the shares

>seen in October 2022, indicating that U S consumers have adjusted

>to inflationary pressures, managing their spending where they can

Yeah, don't do that. There's nothing remotely optimistic about that.

rather than talking about a scary number increasing, e.g. the amount of people living paycheck to paycheck went up, say, 3% next year, instead we can talk about how that 40% only went down a couple points but mostly stayed the same!

two years from now, though… that’s probably free ice cream time.