>when I mean most people - I mean 50% of the population.

That's not really applicable because:

1. the study is for an "unexpected" expense. This you can see from 2 years away

2. The wording in the study was something along the lines of "would have to dip into savings", not that they literally don't have any money for it. The fed's survey of consumer finances shows the median household has between 7-13k (depending whether you're counting median income or median wealth) in their checking accounts

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scf/dataviz/scf/chart...

Not sure what you are trying to argue.

Should people be more financially responsible? Yes

Are they today? No

In a rational world payday loans, predatory auto loans, BNPL, perpetually rolling credit card debt etc would not need to exist. Yet these sectors are rapidly growing and companies in it are thriving.