A Quarter of Americans Now Spend More Than They Earn, National Financial Study Finds
More than a quarter of American adults now spend more than they earn, according to a sweeping national study drawing fresh attention this week as evidence that household budgets are under unusual strain. The findings come from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation’s National Financial Capability Study, a triennial survey of more than 25,500 adults in every state, published in the summer of 2025 and analyzed again in new reporting this week.
The headline figure is stark: 26 percent of respondents said their spending exceeded their income, up from a range of 18 to 20 percent in earlier waves. The survey, conducted in the second half of 2024, uses a nationally representative sample of roughly 500 adults from each state plus Washington, D.C.
The ground lost since 2021
The study shows households surrendering much of the financial progress made since the Great Recession. The share of Americans who said they found paying all their bills not at all difficult fell to 44 percent, down from a record 54 percent in 2021, the first decline across the study’s six editions.
Satisfaction has weakened too. Sixty-three percent said thinking about their personal finances makes them anxious, up from 56 percent in 2021. About 35 percent said they definitely or probably could not produce $2,000 for an unexpected expense, up from 30 percent. The share able to cover three months of living expenses from savings dropped to 46 percent from 53 percent, and the proportion paying off credit cards in full each month fell six percentage points since 2021.
Rising costs hit the middle too
FINRA Foundation President Gerri Walsh said the results reflect a worrying shift in Americans’ financial resilience. After more than a decade of gains, she noted, households in middle-income brackets are now facing financial difficulty despite stable incomes, a sign that rising costs are creating pressure across a wider share of the population.
Food prices are the clearest squeeze point: two thirds of respondents said higher food costs forced them to cut back elsewhere. As prices rose faster than paychecks this year, families have leaned harder on savings and credit, while retirement accounts have taken hits from market volatility.
The message for policymakers is that financial fragility is no longer concentrated at the bottom of the income ladder. When a quarter of adults spend more than they bring in, the buffer that protects families from shocks is thinning across the middle of the country as well.
