The percentage of Americans just scraping by financially is rising as wage growth slows and inflation flares, Bank of America finds.

A growing share of lower-income Americans are struggling to get by financially as their wages fail to keep up with inflation, according to a recent analysis.

Roughly 29% of lower-income households are living paycheck to paycheck, up slightly from 2024 and from 27.1% in 2023, data from the Bank of America Institute shows. The financial firm defines that as spending more than 95% of household income on necessities such as housing, gasoline, groceries, utility bills and internet service.

In 2025, nearly a quarter of all U.S. households lived paycheck to paycheck, Bank of America estimates.

  • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    7·
    3 days ago

    Seems pretty low. This source from September said:

    PNC Bank’s annual Financial Wellness in the Workplace Report shows that 67 percent of workers now say they are living paycheck to paycheck, up from 63 percent in 2024.

    The report surveyed 1,000 U.S. workers aged 21 to 69 who work full time at companies with more than 100 workers. The margin of error is pls or minus 3 percent.

    Then again, it’s newsweek, so I don’t know. Either number is way too high for “the richest nation on the history of the world!!”