Today, the average American feels pretty good about their job and is basically optimistic about their financial future. Still, millions are sometimes one unexpected car repair away from a pocketbook crisis.
The May edition of the PYMNTS Consumer Expectations Index (PCEI) explores that tension: the disconnect between what consumers feel and what their finances can practically support. The PCEI is a composite index measuring consumer sentiment across 11 dimensions organized into three pillars: household financial resilience, macroeconomic and buying climate and labor market security. The index ranges from 0 to 100, with 50 as the neutral midpoint and 100 indicating the highest possible optimism. For an in-depth explanation of how the PCEI works, there’s a more detailed breakdown here.
The PCEI segments consumers into five sentiment tiers based on their score:
- Distressed (0–24)
- Optimistic (76–100)
- Confident (55–75)
- Neutral (45–54)
- Pessimistic (25–44)
The measure also factors in consumers’ financial lifestyle: whether they live paycheck to paycheck, and if they do, whether they manage to do so comfortably or are struggling to get by.
Consumers are generally optimistic, but it’s not all sunshine and roses.
The May 2026 data, drawn from a survey of 2,465 U.S. adult consumers fielded May 4–11, 2026, reveals a consumer landscape that looks stable on the surface but shows fractures underneath. The overall PCEI score of 54.3 is up slightly from the prior month, led by gains in labor confidence.
However, those headline numbers obscure a vast (and widening) sentiment gap between the most and least financially stressed households. What a consumer earns matters less than what remains after the bills are paid, and that gap between income and obligation is what determines whether confidence can really translate into spending.
The Consumer Financial Resilience Split
The index exposes a 21-point PCEI gap between the most and least financially secure consumers that income alone cannot explain.
The PCEI’s composite score is a weighted average of all 11 dimensions, reflecting a consumer’s overall financial confidence and capacity. In May 2026, that composite can look very different depending on the consumer’s paycheck-to-paycheck status.
Consumers not living paycheck to paycheck scored 61.9, up 0.9 points from April, a number that sits comfortably in the Confident tier. Consumers living paycheck to paycheck without issues paying their bills each month scored 56.2, up 2.4 points. By contrast, consumers living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay bills scored 40.6, marking a 1.1-point decrease from a month earlier and an 8-month low.
The gap between the top and bottom groups now stands at 21 points, and it widened by 2 points in May alone. Moreover, 58% of consumers living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay bills are pessimistic or distressed, versus just 16% of those not living paycheck to paycheck.
Those figures give a much more comprehensive picture of a consumer’s financial circumstances than income alone. The 21-point financial lifestyle gap is nearly double the roughly 11-point disparity between the highest and lowest income groups (consumers earning more than $150,000 annually versus those earning less than $50,000). That’s because paycheck-to-paycheck status captures something income cannot: obligations, liquidity and the ability to tolerate sudden financial shocks. Two households can earn similar wages and face very different financial realities depending on how much of that income is already spoken for before it arrives.
The Financial Resilience Divide
Consumer financial resilience shows a 33-point gap between the most and least financially secure households.
The PCEI’s household financial resilience subindex measures a consumer’s capacity to manage obligations and absorb shocks. It draws on five questions covering current finances, future finances, debt management, savings capacity and emergency readiness. On this pillar more than any other, the PCEI exposes how differently paycheck-to-paycheck status shapes daily financial life.
In May 2026, consumers not living paycheck to paycheck scored 71.3 on resilience—up 1.7 points from April. Consumers living paycheck to paycheck without issues paying bills scored 59.4, up 1.4 points. Those living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay bills were the only ones to see a decrease, scoring 37.8, a downtick of 1.9 points.
The gap between the top and bottom groups is 33 points, three times wider than the macroeconomic gap and 2.5 times wider than the labor gap. That May figure shows a resilience gap 3.6 points wider than it was just the previous month.
This trend is also evident in the different PCEI tiers consumers fall into. Among consumers not living paycheck to paycheck, 87% fall into the confident or optimistic tiers for resilience. For those comfortably living paycheck to paycheck, 62% are in those positive tiers. But for consumers living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay bills, however, 58% feel negative, with 27% in the distressed tier alone. That 27% distressed reading is the highest of any persona reading across any pillar in the index.
Resilience is most held back by low emergency readiness and difficulty building savings.
Not all sub-dimensions of resilience are as uneven. The breakdown identifies the two largest sources of the problem: emergency readiness (i.e., the ability to cover an urgent, unexpected expense of roughly $1,200) and consumers’ confidence in their ability to increase their savings over the next year.
Consumers living paycheck to paycheck with difficulty scored 24.5 in emergency readiness, a decline of 5.3 points in a single month and the steepest monthly drop of any dimension across the entire index. For savings confidence, they scored 36.0, down 2.7 points in May, while the scores for consumers not living paycheck to paycheck rose 2.0 to 65.4.
By contrast, financially struggling consumers did not show much pessimism about their future finances (i.e., how their financial situation will change over the next three years). They scored 48.4 in this category in May, close to neutral, indicating a modest degree of optimism about where things might be headed.
Evidently, many financially insecure consumers believe their situation may improve, even if they do not believe they can absorb a significant shock today or start saving up tomorrow.
It is worth noting that consumers living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay bills earn an average of $49,000 per year, 60% are paid hourly or through gig work and 74% earn variable income. Clearly, when the paycheck itself fluctuates, the capacity to build savings or maintain emergency reserves is the first casualty.
Consumers Want to Spend, But Can’t
As consumers feel pessimistic about macroeconomic circumstances, financial resilience weakens, especially for those who are struggling financially.
The macroeconomic and buying climate subindex measures consumers’ outlook on the national economy and whether current conditions support major household purchases. Three components make up this pillar: short-term economic outlook, long-term economic outlook and buying conditions.
This is the most uniformly negative pillar in the PCEI. All three consumer groups scored below the neutral midpoint of 50 in May. Consumers who don’t live paycheck to paycheck came in at 47.9. Those living paycheck to paycheck comfortably scored 46.8. Consumers living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay bills scored 36.3, down 1.2 points from April. The nearly unanimous pessimism here suggests that macroeconomic anxiety is not confined to those who feel the impacts most acutely.
Since December 2025, macroeconomic expectations for financially struggling consumers have declined 8 points from 44.3 to 36.3. Those not living paycheck to paycheck declined 4 points over the same period. It seems that individuals who struggle to pay bills are facing the same headwinds but feeling their effects more intensely.
Even if they want to buy, many consumers can’t right now.
Delving into the specific factors that comprise that macroeconomic sentiment shows where the gap sits. Across all three macro dimensions, consumers who don’t live paycheck to paycheck or who do so without issues paying bills score within 1 to 3 points of each other, all in the 45 to 50 range. Struggling paycheck-to-paycheck consumers trail by 10 to 14 points on every dimension and were the only group to decline on each in May. The buying conditions reading sharpens the point. Struggling paycheck-to-paycheck consumers scored 34.3 there, down 1.7 points, while their long-term economic outlook held at 38.8. They expect conditions to improve over a three-year horizon but can’t act on that expectation in the current market, highlighting how intent and capacity are running on different tracks.
Across all three macroeconomic dimensions, consumers who don’t live paycheck to paycheck or who do so without issues paying bills are within the 45 to 50 range. Paycheck-to-paycheck consumers who are struggling to pay bills trail by 10 to 14 points. So, whatever their desire to spend may be, financially constrained consumers aren’t confident in their ability to do so right now.
Job Security Improves, But Mobility Weakens
People are more optimistic about the labor market, but many still feel stuck.
The labor market security subindex measures personal income continuity and the ability to replace income if need be. It covers three areas: one’s own job security, perceived layoff risk among peers and job mobility (i.e., the confidence that they could find comparable work and income if they needed to).
Labor is the one pillar where the PCEI appears to show good news. In May 2026, all three consumer groups scored above the neutral midpoint of 50, and all three showed an increase from the month before. Consumers not living paycheck to paycheck scored 74.2 on labor, up 1.4 points. Those comfortably living paycheck to paycheck scored 68.8, up 2.1. Paycheck-to-paycheck consumers who are struggling to pay their bills scored 60.9, up 1.1 points. Seven in 10 financially pressured individuals fall in the Confident or Optimistic tiers on labor, their highest positive reading on any pillar in the index. Among non-paycheck-to-paycheck consumers, that share is even higher, at 88%. Still, many people find themselves without much freedom or choice when it comes to employment.
Job security surged 5.8 points. The ability to replace that income fell 4.4.
Consumers living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay bills scored 79.2 on their own job security in May, up 5.8 points from April. This uptick marks the single largest monthly gain of any dimension across the entire index. These individuals feel considerably safer in their current roles than they did a month ago.
However, job mobility—confidence in the ability to find comparable work if displaced—only scored 36.3 for these consumers, falling 4.4 points in the same period. The gap between security and mobility is wide, at 43 points, and growing wider.
A consumer who feels secure in their current job but doubts their ability to replace it is not a consumer with genuine labor market resilience. They are someone whose financial stability depends entirely on their current employer and circumstances remaining undisrupted. For a group where 60% are paid hourly or through gig work and 74% carry variable income, that’s a precarious foundation.
Meanwhile, individuals who are in more secure financial positions are feeling better about their job mobility. Among consumers living paycheck to paycheck without issues paying bills, mobility recovered by 4.5 points in May to reach 49.5. Among non-paycheck-to-paycheck consumers, mobility rose 3.6 points to 55.5.
Peer layoff risk, the middle dimension, scored 68.1 for consumers living paycheck to paycheck with issues paying bills, up 2.8 points in May. They believe their colleagues are reasonably safe in the labor market. Their doubt is more personal: They do not believe the market would work as well for them if they had to rely on it.
Conclusion
The May 2026 PCEI shows tension between consumers’ sentiment and their actual buying power, sometimes within the same individual.
The 21-point PCEI gap between non-paycheck-to-paycheck consumers (61.9) and struggling paycheck-to-paycheck consumers (40.6) widened by 2 points in May alone. That gap reflects the obligations, liquidity and shock-absorbing capacity that paycheck-to-paycheck status captures, which income figures alone do not always reflect. A consumer who earns $49,000 per year, is paid hourly with variable hours and carries no emergency savings does not experience the same economy as a salaried consumer earning $75,000 with three months of expenses in a savings account, even if both express similar levels of macroeconomic concern.
For businesses, the PCEI provides demand signals with more resolution than traditional sentiment measures. When resilience is weakening (emergency readiness at 24.5 and falling for the most financially pressured consumers), payment flexibility becomes a structural feature, not a marketing add-on. Installment options, bill smoothing and terms designed for variable-income households keep constrained consumers in the market rather than forcing them out of it. Additionally, when labor mobility is falling even as job security is rising, it signals a consumer whose planning horizon is shortening and whose tolerance for large, long-term purchases is declining accordingly.
Today’s financially struggling consumer is watching carefully and holding on. The gap the May 2026 PCEI measures shows the difference between what they feel and what they can afford to do about it.
Methodology
The “PYMNTS Consumer Expectations Index,” a PYMNTS Intelligence exclusive series, is based on a survey of 2,465 U.S. adult consumers conducted May 4–11, 2026. This report examines consumer sentiment along 11 dimensions. Our sample was balanced to match the U.S. adult population by age, gender, education and income.
