It does take a non-zero amount of money, though. Depending on your source, 49% [1], 76% [2], or 78% [3] [4] of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, implying that they have no savings available to be automated.

1: https://www.gobankingrates.com/making-money/jobs/survey-grea...

2: http://www.fox19.com/story/22676408/bankratecom-finds-76-of-...

3: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/most-americans-live-paycheck...

4: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-living-paycheck-to-pa...

I've actually helped people out on welfare. One family had a big screen TV, everyone (even the kids) had cellphones, and so on.

Some people are poor, but some are just dumb. I wish I could fix poor, but I can't fix stupid. And there is a lot of stupid around.

I know many people who make a few hundred thousand dollars (in Texas, not silicon valley or NYC), and they live paycheck to paycheck. That's stupid, not poor.

So when I see stats like that (thank you for the links), I always wonder what the real number is - how many are poor, and how many are just stupid.

I often wonder how many of those same paycheck-to-paycheck Americans are driving leased cars, cars under 5 years old, smoking, own the latest smartphone, and/or are regularly eating/drinking out.

I get that there are people living genuinely frugally and still struggling. It may just be observational bias, but I suspect there are a lot more people struggling who are not choosing to live frugally and where that choice would help them quite a bit.

It used to be that you could do all those things, get married, have children, and still live a decent life and retire on a pension. The fact that we have to expect anyone to be perfect if they want to have savings when dedicating fully 1/2 or more of their waking hours to making someone else money is absurd.

Was it the case? Both grandfathers worked blue collar jobs (coal mining and steel milling). Obviously, they didn’t have smartphones, but they also drove cars (1 per household, often bought used, never leased) for a decade plus, didn’t have cable/Netflix, ate basically every meal at home/brown bagged lunch, grew some of their own food, made their own coffee at home, and lived in 900-1200 square feet without AC (including raising 5 kids in a 2 BR house in one case) to make ends meet.

Obviously, I didn’t study economics when I was 5, but this seemed to be the norm in that era and community and would be viewed as abnormally (perhaps unacceptably) frugal now.

To be clear, they did get married, have children, live a decent life, and retire on pensions, but they and their neighbors lived a lot more frugally than seems to be normal/accepted today.

Completely agree. Instead of complaining that it's a rigged system, empower students to learn about the power of compound interest, buying stocks, index funds, dividends, revinvestment plans. Instead academia is pushing outrage and that government should be the solution.