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.
There’s no way it’s only ~29%
It’s not. Especially now, it’s way worse than that. There was a real report that came out a few months ago.
Bank of America is doing the estimating sooooo, they have reasons I’m sure to lower the estimate.
And I love how they rounded down. If you don’t have at least 3 months of finances available on hand at any given time, you are pay check to pay check.
That’s because you’re used to the propagandized number, that counts everyone who makes plenty enough to save, but deliberately chooses not to, and spend it all, as “living paycheck to paycheck”, in addition to the people who are actually struggling.