On Chinese social media, stories of U.S. financial hardship have gone viral under the phrase “death line,” describing how many Americans are just one crisis away from poverty.
在中国社交媒体上，关于美国经济困境的故事正以“斩杀线”一词广泛传播，该词描述了许多美国人距离陷入贫困仅一步之遥的境况。

Why It Matters
为何此事值得关注

Roughly 67 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, according to PNC Bank's 2025 Financial Wellness report, while a Bankrate survey found 59 percent say they could not cover a $1,000 surprise expense.
根据PNC银行发布的《2025年财务健康报告》，约67%的美国民众过着月光族的生活，而Bankrate的一项调查显示，59%的美国人表示无法承担1000美元的意外开支。

These economic strains in the United States have become a topic of great interest in China, where people long viewed Americans as prosperous and the U.S. as an economic success story.
美国的经济压力已成为中国社会高度关注的话题。长期以来，中国人普遍认为美国民众生活富足，并将美国视为经济成功的典范。

Although China’s social safety net remains limited, lower housing costs and stronger family support make such U.S. hardships appear starker by comparison. State-lixed Chinese outlets have also amplified these conversations, characterizing U.S.-style capitalism as chaotic and brutal compared to China’s state-directed development model.
尽管中国的社会保障体系仍有待完善，但相对较低的住房成本和更牢固的家庭支持体系，使得美国的经济困境在对比中显得尤为突出。中国官方媒体也放大了这类讨论，将美式资本主义描述为混乱而残酷的制度，以此对比中国国家主导的发展模式。

Newsweek has reached out to the U.S. State Department by email with a request for comment.
《新闻周刊》已通过电子邮件联系美国国务院请求置评。

What To Know
要点须知

An American blogger’s post about struggling to live in San Francisco on a $450,000 salary spread widely on Chinese social media. The discussion began on the lifestyle platform xiaohongshu (Red Note) and quickly moved to Weibo, where users discussed it under a hashtag that translates roughly as "U.S. death line."
一位美国博主关于在旧金山年薪45万美元仍生活拮据的帖子在中国社交媒体上广泛传播。讨论始于生活方式平台小红书，随后迅速蔓延至微博，用户们在一个大致可译为“美国斩杀线”的话题标签下展开热议。

"Death line," referred to as some as the “kill line," is a term in Chinese computer game lingo describing the point at which a player’s health is so low that they can be finished with one strike. Online, it has become a metaphor for Americans living so close to financial collapse that one accident, illness, or bill could “finish them off.”
“斩杀线”，是中国电脑游戏术语，指玩家生命值低至可能被一击毙命的临界点。在网络上，该词已成为隐喻，形容美国民众财务状况濒临崩溃，任何意外事故、疾病或账单都可能“彻底击垮他们”。

The topic has drawn posts of surprise from some netizens and schadenfreude from others.
这一话题引发了部分网民的惊讶，也催生了另一些人的幸灾乐祸。

A long post by the Weibo user Qingqing Ledao, identifying herself as a longtime resident of Seattle, said that for families making less than $100,000 in total income, “life is very hard unless you have no rent or mortgage and don’t need medical insurance.” She added that “most Americans have no cushion—if they lose a job, fall ill, or divorce, they can quickly fall into crisis.”
微博用户“青青乐道”自称长期居住在西雅图，她发布的长文指出，对于家庭总收入低于10万美元的家庭而言，“除非无需支付房租或房贷且不需要医疗保险，否则生活将十分艰难。”她补充道，“大多数美国人没有缓冲余地——一旦失业、患病或离婚，他们可能迅速陷入危机。”

The netizen also criticized what she called the country’s “extreme individualism,” arguing that it had dismantled traditional family support networks.
这位网民还批评了她所称的美国“极端个人主义”，认为这种观念瓦解了传统的家庭支持网络。

Yu Cixin, a finance columnist writing on the commercial portal NetEase, wrote that in the United States “a stable residence is the basic condition for keeping a job,” and that after losing employment and the ability to pay rent, "most people become homeless within a short time.”
商业门户网站网易的财经专栏作家余慈欣撰文表示，在美国“稳定的住所是维持工作的基本条件”，失去工作和支付租金能力后，“大多数人会在短时间内无家可归”。

She contrasted this with China’s social safety net, writing that Chinese people “find the ‘Death Line’ hard to understand” because the country has what she called a 'minimum-guarantee line' providing basic welfare assistance.
她将这种情况与中国社会保障体系进行对比，写道中国人“难以理解‘斩杀线’概念”，因为中国设有她所称的“最低保障线”提供基本福利援助。

China has a minimum-income allowance known as the dibao that provides small, means-tested cash payments to households below local poverty thresholds. The aid is not automatic, however, and many migrant and informal workers are excluded because eligibility depends on local registration.
中国实行最低生活保障制度（即低保），向低于当地贫困线的家庭提供经过经济状况调查的小额现金补助。但该援助并非自动发放，许多流动人口和非正规就业者因资格取决于户籍所在地而被排除在保障范围之外。

What People Are Saying
各方观点

Lizzi Lee, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, wrote on X: “Ultimately this is a U.S. vs. China service-cost problem. With globalization and new technology, goods (food, appliances, electronics etc.) in the U.S. have gotten much cheaper. But labor-intensive services (housing, healthcare, education, childcare etc.) have gone in the opposite direction. And for many families, these are not optional services... And when something goes wrong, the costs pile on all at once.
亚洲协会政策研究院中国分析中心研究员李姿在X平台上写道：“归根结底，这是美国与中国在服务成本方面的问题。随着全球化和新技术的发展，美国商品（食品、家电、电子产品等）价格已大幅下降。但劳动密集型服务（住房、医疗、教育、育儿等）却朝着相反方向发展。对许多家庭而言，这些并非可选择的消费……一旦出现问题，各项开支便会瞬间堆积如山。”

“Of course, there are many gaps and underdeveloped areas, esp. in rural regions [in China], and in many respects China’s formal social welfare system is much weaker than that of the U.S. But informal social structures, especially family support, combined with lower service prices, create a kind of basic buffering that makes the system feel at least in some ways less brittle...”
“当然，（中国）尤其在农村地区仍存在诸多缺口和发展不足的领域，且在诸多方面中国的正规社会福利体系远弱于美国。但非正式的社会结构，特别是家庭支持，结合较低的服务价格，形成了一种基础缓冲机制，使得整个体系至少在某种程度上显得不那么脆弱……”

The White House wrote in a November 18 post on X: ""The Biden administration started the affordability crisis, but President [Donald] Trump will end it so all Americans can achieve economic prosperity."
白宫于11月18日在X平台发文称：“拜登政府引发了这场生活成本危机，但特朗普总统将终结它，让所有美国人实现经济繁荣。”

What Happens Next
后续走向

Millions of Americans living on the edge are expected to feel a new strain as the Trump administration's policies take effect.
随着特朗普政府政策生效，数百万生活拮据的美国人预计将面临新的压力。

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July, cut more than $1 trillion from health programs—the largest reduction of federal health funding in U.S. history. Health care advocates warn it could leave up to 10 million people without coverage.
今年7月签署生效的《大而美法案》从医疗项目中削减了超过1万亿美元资金，这是美国历史上最大规模的联邦医疗经费缩减。医疗保健倡导者警告称，此举可能导致多达1000万人失去医疗保障。

The Trump administration has defended the move as an effort to reduce waste and promote self-sufficiency, introducing new provisions that require recipients to work in order to receive benefits.
特朗普政府为这项举措辩护称，其目的在于减少资源浪费并促进自给自足，同时引入了要求受益者必须工作才能获得福利的新规定。