Paycheck-To-Paycheck Nation: How Life In America Adds Up

A house. Two cars. A kid in college. Debi and Nick Lemieur had all the markers of a middle class life. But they both remember one purchase — Nick’s $600 bass amplifier — that prompted one of the biggest fights in their four decades of marriage.

“He didn’t tell me, he hid it in the trunk of the car, and I found it,” Debi says, laughing, 14 years later. “To me it was like, oh my god, how much will this screw with our budget?”

An unexpected bill like that is what separates millions of Americans from financial disaster. In fact, survey after survey for years have found most people in the U.S. live paycheck to paycheck.