With inflation deflating the dollar and prices through the roof, more Americans report they are living paycheck-to-paycheck, though the stats vary month to month.
For the latest study in the series “New Reality Check: The Paycheck-To-Paycheck Report: Emergency Spending Edition,” a PYMNTS and LendingClub collaboration, we surveyed over 4,000 U.S. consumers, finding that nearly 3 in 5 U.S. consumers were living paycheck to paycheck in July 2022 — a 5 percentage-point increase from July 2021.
As the study states, “Living paycheck to paycheck is becoming the norm, and as many consumers now live paycheck to paycheck without issues paying bills as those who do not live paycheck to paycheck. The affluent are not immune to these trends, either, as the share of high-income consumers living paycheck to paycheck has increased in the past year.”
Get the report: New Reality Check: The Paycheck-To-Paycheck Report: Emergency Spending Edition
While the 59% of consumers living paycheck to paycheck in July was a slight improvement over the June figure of 61%, the year-over-year trajectory combined with the ongoing inflationary crush is a combination keeping more Americans in the “making ends meet” category.
Per the study, the share of consumers living paycheck to paycheck across income levels has fluctuated, but “it has also trended upward, especially for those in higher income brackets. For instance, 74% of consumers annually earning less than $50,000 were living paycheck to paycheck in July 2022, a decrease from 76% in July 2021.
“All other consumers became more likely to be living paycheck to paycheck: 63% of those annually earning $50,000 to $100,000 were living paycheck to paycheck in July 2022, up from 55% in July 2021, as were 43% of those earning more than $100,000 per year, a 9 percentage-point increase from 34% in July 2021.”
Learn more: New Reality Check: The Paycheck-To-Paycheck Report: Emergency Spending Edition
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