Do nearly two-thirds of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck? (2024)

FAQs

What percentage of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck? ›

Recent MarketWatch Guides survey results indicate that 66.2% of Americans feel like they're living paycheck to paycheck. Respondents struggling to make ends meet span demographics, including genders, generations and incomes.

More than a third of Americans earning at least $250,000 annually report living paycheck to paycheck, highlighting how inflation is impacting budgets across the income spectrum.

More than half of Americans earning over $100,000 a year live paycheck to paycheck. So what's going on? Many experts point to a phenomenon called lifestyle inflation as one of the culprits. Lifestyle inflation, or lifestyle creep, is the pattern of spending a little more as a person's income increases.

About 38% of full-time workers nationwide said they were living paycheck to paycheck in 2016, according to job-search firm CareerBuilder.

Key Takeaways. More than one in four Americans (28%) have savings below $1,000. This is the case for 32% of Gen Zers, followed by Millennials at 31%, Gen X at 27% and Baby Boomers at 20%.

Around 23% of Americans are debt free, according to the most recent data available from the Federal Reserve. That figure factors in every type of debt, from credit card balances and student loans to mortgages, car loans and more. The exact definition of debt free can vary, though, depending on whom you ask.

Even Americans earning six figures say they are living paycheck to paycheck—including people making over $200,000. Under inflation, even the wealthy report financial strain. Money, money, money, isn't even funny in a rich man's world.

Thirty-three percent of workers earning between $50,000 and $79,999 annually say they're living paycheck to paycheck, compared to 36 percent of workers earning between $80,000 and $99,999 and 24 percent of workers earning $100,000 or more. Other Bankrate data supports these survey findings.

A report by the World Economic Forum found that Americans think that a full 20% of earners make over $500,000, but this is starkly different from reality. The actual percentage of the U.S. population who earn more than $500,000 per year is less than 1%.

The 50-30-20 budget rule states that you should spend up to 50% of your after-tax income on needs and obligations that you must have or must do. The remaining half should dedicate 20% to savings, leaving 30% to be spent on things you want but don't necessarily need.

What percent of Americans make over 100k? ›

One estimate found that the median U.S. household income is $77,397. Only 18% of individual Americans make more than $100,000 a year, according to 2023 data from careers website Zippia. About 34% of U.S. households earn more than $100,000 a year, according to Zippia.

27% of U.S. adults have no emergency savings, as of May 2024 polling — the highest percentage since 2020. People are working hard on their finances. 36% of U.S. adults are prioritizing both debt repayment and building emergency savings, as of January 2024 polling, as opposed to just focusing on one.

More than a quarter of US adults are struggling financially. 72% of Americans reported “living comfortably” or “doing okay,” according to December 2023 data from the Federal Reserve.

According to data from the Federal Reserve's 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, the average American family has $62,410 in savings, across savings accounts, checking accounts, money market accounts, call deposit accounts, and prepaid cards.

Interestingly, the difference in methodology makes little difference in the average share of workers earning a living wage. Under the national threshold, 65.4% of workers make a living wage, as opposed to 63.7% in the local threshold.

According to the latest Labor Department Data, 82.3 million workers ages 16+ were paid at hourly rates. That's a whopping 58.1% of all workers in the US, while the other 41.9% makes up the rest of the full-time salaried workforce.

Less than half of Americans (44%) say they can afford to pay a $1,000 emergency expense from their savings, according to a new Bankrate survey. This is up slightly from 43% in 2023, and at the same level as 2022.