"Getting by"

I was going to blog about how this Pew survey has been interpreted (Most Americans Moderately Upbeat About Family Finances in 2007 is how they title it). As you can imagine, some people linking to the article focus on the 32% who respond that they are either barely getting by or don't have enough for the basics.

I think I'll focus on that 32% as well. I've worked with a lot of people in various stages of financial crisis. I feel for them (I'm acutely aware of what it's like to be broke), but I'm convinced that no matter what you do, there's going to be that 30% who feel they can't get by. I'm convinced I could give most of that 30% an extra $5,000 per year and they'd still be barely getting by.

I'm not trying to put anyone down or be insensitive. What I'm trying to say is that when it comes to credit & debt, how much money you make is not a significant factor. There are people who make very little money with perfect credit, and multi-millionaires with terrible credit.

I sometimes see open hostility from people who are completing their pre-discharge bankruptcy education. They feel that they simply don't have enough money to make ends meet, and they're insulted that they have to take the financial literacy course, as though being in bankruptcy means they're stupid. I know it feels like more money is the answer, but my experience teaches me otherwise. If you're financially literate and have good spending habits, it doesn't matter how much wealth you have.

A lot of people won't accept that; I've heard a lot of protestations to the contrary from people in financial crisis. I don't know how to change the mind of someone who is convinced that they can't get by on what they're earning. I know a lot of people are genuinely in poverty and truly don't have enough money to get by; I've been one of them for long stretches of my life. But they aren't 32% of the population. There are simply too many people who don't have any sense of perspective when it comes to personal finances.

What I'm saying is this: in a country where 94% of us own microwave ovens, I don't believe 32% of us can't make ends meet. But no matter how good things get, you can count on a third of us to claim we don't have enough.