From Paycheck to Penthouse, Americans Share One Feeling About Money: Panic

Ask an American how they feel about money and the answer rarely tracks the size of their paycheck. That is the uncomfortable finding at the heart of Ten Lives, the new book from data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi. She spent five years following Americans who live paycheck to paycheck alongside people earning top wages, and found a shared emotional state she describes as "panic."

In an interview with NPR, Chalabi said financial security can feel elusive no matter where someone sits on the economic spectrum. Her conclusion runs against a basic assumption of American economic life: that earning more steadily buys peace of mind.

Five Years, Ten Lives

Chalabi is known for turning dry statistics into vivid, human-scale illustrations. This time she went slower and closer. Rather than relying only on aggregate figures, she tracked individual households over half a decade and watched how they made decisions about rent, debt, savings and the future.

The long timeline matters. Snapshots of household finances can miss what happens around a major event, such as a layoff, a medical bill or a move to a more expensive city. Following people for years let Chalabi observe the slow-moving pressures that shape financial anxiety, along with the sudden shocks.

Anxiety Without a Ceiling

For families living paycheck to paycheck, the source of panic is easy to see. One missed shift or a surprise car repair can upend a budget. The more striking part of Chalabi's reporting is that high earners described a version of the same dread.

For many of them, money seems to work like a treadmill. As income rises, so do housing costs, childcare and tuition bills, social expectations and the sense that more could be lost. The finish line keeps moving, and the people on the treadmill rarely feel they can step off.

Chalabi's book does not argue that the struggles of rich and poor are the same. Running short on groceries is a different kind of hardship from worrying about a retirement portfolio. Her point is that, in the American system, financial security is fragile enough that few people feel truly safe, whatever their income.

Why It Resonates Now

The book arrives as many households are still adjusting to years of elevated prices, high borrowing costs and an uneven job market. Consumer sentiment surveys have repeatedly shown Americans feeling worse about the economy than some headline indicators would suggest. Economists have debated the reasons for that gap.

Ten Lives offers one human-scale explanation. Feelings about money are shaped less by national averages than by personal exposure to risk: whether a single setback could unravel years of progress. When the safety net feels thin, even a good salary can seem like a tightrope instead of solid ground.

For policymakers, that is a pointed message. Raising incomes matters, but Chalabi's reporting suggests that predictability may matter just as much. That means stable costs for healthcare, housing and education, the big-ticket expenses that keep Americans awake at night.

Her book is not a spreadsheet. It reads more like a mirror held up to a nation that measures success in dollars yet rarely feels it has enough of them.