Large percentage of Americans report they’re struggling to make ends meet | SSTI (2024)

FAQs

What percent of Americans struggle to make ends meet? ›

70% Of Americans Struggle To Make Ends Meet | Adecco Group.

The COVID-19 pandemic sent a painful shockwave through both the US and the global economy.

In the last decade, millions of people found themselves unemployed or underemployed with few or no benefits, sometimes indefinitely. Fewer people work with one company for decades, employee benefits have shrunk, technology and globalization have eliminated jobs, and more people are employed in freelance work.

If you are facing financial stress right now, you are not alone. According to a recent Ramsey Solutions study, 34% of survey respondents indicated that they were either facing financial struggles or were actively in crisis.

Families are struggling to buy homes and pay mortgages, weekly grocery bills have practically doubled, the childcare crisis wages on, and the number of moms sharing these same worries in our algorithms has dramatically increased.

48.6% of Americans consider themselves to be “broke,” and 66.2% feel they are “living paycheck to paycheck.” There is a gender gap in the results: Females are more likely to consider themselves “broke” at 55.8%, compared to males at 41.1%.

Almost 40% of American adults report they struggle to make ends meet each month, an increase from 34.4% in 2022 and 26.7% in 2021. At 46.2%, Louisiana had the highest percentage reporting financial struggles followed by Mississippi (45.7%) and Arkansas (45.6%).

A third of American adults in Northwestern Mutual's 2024 Planning & Progress survey said they don't feel financially secure. That's up from 27% in 2023 and the highest measure going back to 2012.

The country's most vulnerable populations, such as children, the elderly, and those subject to discrimination, like African Americans, were the hardest hit.

The public's list of the top problems facing the nation includes inflation, health care affordability, drug addiction and gun violence. Yet the ability of Republicans and Democrats to work together rates about as high on the problems list as these other concerns.

What does struggling to make ends meet mean? ›

To make ends meet means "to pay for the things that you need to live when you have little money." This is a good example of an idiom that is often used in English but that is not transparent in meaning. Here are some examples of how this phrase is used: We had a hard time making ends meet.

From the data we've gathered, we learned that respondents' average annual household income was $61,588, but they needed an additional $24,192, on average (nearly 40% of their actual income), just to make ends meet due to inflation.

The survey also found that 37% of Americans are behind on monthly bills, which jumps to 53% among parents with young children. Additionally, 61% reported that inflation has impacted their ability to afford their lifestyle. "Yes, inflation seems to have peaked, but it hasn't gone away," Schulz continued.

Seventy-three percent of adults were doing at least okay financially in 2022, down 5 percentage points from 2021. The share of adults who said they were worse off financially than a year earlier rose to 35 per- cent, the highest level since the question was first asked in 2014.

How much money Americans have in their savings accounts—nearly half have less than $500. Nearly half of Americans have $500 or less in their savings accounts, an amount that leaves them vulnerable to unexpected expenses, according to a GOBankingRates survey of 1,063 U.S. adults conducted in November 2023.

New body image statistics

One in five adults (20%) felt shame, just over one-third (34%) felt down or low, and 19% felt disgusted by their body image in the last year. Among teenagers, 37% felt upset, and 31% felt ashamed about their body image.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they have $0 set aside for their later years. Here's how many Americans have nothing saved for retirement, broken down by age bracket: 18 to 24: 28% 25 to 34: 30%

Although 92 percent of people surveyed in one study believed that talking with family members about end-of-life care was important, only 32 percent of them actually had done so.