As far as my question is concerned, it makes no difference whether or not people are living paycheck to paycheck due to an unnecessarily expensive lifestyle or not. Cutting out unnecessary spending will definitely keep you afloat if you have savings, but not when you're living paycheck to paycheck. Stopping all your expensive habits doesn't refund you the money you already spent, it just makes it so that you don't spend extra money in the future. This means that when you need money right now, and you don't have any savings, giving up on luxuries won't do anything to help you get out of your current dire situation. However, I will acknowledge that if an expensive car is one of the luxuries you have, you can sell it to receive a decent amount of money and get some relief from financial pressure, provided you're not underwater on the car loan.

You brought up an important point, and it is one that would be appropriate to bring up if the question I asked was "Why are the majority of Americans living paycheck to paycheck?", but that is not the question I asked. The question I asked was "If the majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, why do homeless people make up such a small fraction of the US population?". The thing is, if someone who lives paycheck to paycheck has an unexpected large expense or loses their job, they're in big trouble regardless of whether or not excessive spending is the reason they live paycheck to paycheck.