A Chinese Communist Party journal has taken up the topic of financial hardships facing millions of Americans who are just one crisis away from poverty, linking it to the rise of President Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) domestic and foreign policies.
Why It Matters
Approximately 67 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, according to PNC Bank’s 2025 Financial Wellness report. A Bankrate survey found 59 percent say they could not cover a $1,000 emergency expense.
Economic insecurity in the U.S. has become a hot topic in China, with many netizens expressing surprise that the world’s largest economy—and home to trillion-dollar tech companies—lacks sturdier safety nets for its citizens.
Newsweek reached out to the White House by email with a request for comment.
What To Know
The topic has been trending on Chinese social media, where it has been dubbed the “death line,” or “kill line,” Chinese gaming lingo for the point at which a player’s health is so low, they can be finished with one blow. It has become a metaphor for Americans living just one accident, illness or bill from financial collapse.
“It does not describe abject poverty, but rather a widespread condition where risk resilience has been squeezed to the extreme,” wrote Qiushi, a Beijing-based theoretical journal of the Communist Party, in a recent article.
“Countless American households, though employed, have meager savings, and once struck by unexpected events such as unemployment or serious illness, their financial situation may hit ‘critical health,’ triggering a catastrophic plunge into homelessness and credit collapse,” it added.
The author pointed to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that showed more than 771,000 people experienced homelessness on at least one night in January 2024—a year-on-year increase of 18.1 percent.
Turning to the American political landscape, the journal said Trump’s MAGA movement is a byproduct of a growing number of people “living in fear of falling.”
The piece claimed the movement’s core strategy involves substituting economic pressure with propaganda that blames “‘job-stealing illegal immigrants,’ ‘elites,’ and ‘unfair competition’ from other countries.”
“What it offers is more a sense of identity and emotional release—making supporters feel seen and represented,” the journal continued.
“Therefore building border walls, launching trade wars, and waging cultural battles against ‘political correctness’—these measures primarily serve to create enemies and strengthen group identity. They are powerful tools for political mobilization, yet fail to meaningfully change the economic conditions of ordinary families.”
