It just seems really odd to me to use a phrase in a way that combines people who are very literally resource constrained with few options of climbing out of that hole with people who have the resources available to climb out and above their situation. Both are dependent on their paycheck but one has the ability to break away from that over time with wise choices vs the other likely never being able to break that cycle.
Almost all of the world is living paycheck to paycheck by your definition. The majority of US households would be ‘financially fucked’ if their wage income was taken away for a significant period of time.
what's wrong with using "paycheck to paycheck" this way? we already have the word "poor".
"paycheck to paycheck" means something like no liquid savings and no positive cash flow. there are certainly a lot of people living this way (especially in less wealthy countries), but it's not "almost everyone".
What’s being described is a massive dependence on continued employment, and someone with 200k of student debts and zero net assets easily qualifies.