How 30 Million Workers Borrow From Tomorrow to Pay for Today

Every payday, millions of American workers face some version of the same problem: The bill is due today, the paycheck arrives Friday and they must somehow cover the distance between those two moments.

For Labor Economy workers—the warehouse associates, delivery drivers, caregivers, cooks and retail staff who collectively drive more than $1.7 trillion in annual consumer spending—that distance isn’t an occasional inconvenience. It’s a recurring feature of financial life. More than half of Labor Economy workers needed their money before it was available to cover an essential expense in the last 90 days. One in six faced that situation four or more times in a single quarter.

The March 2026 “Wage to Wallet Index,” a collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence, WorkWhile and Ingo Payments, goes inside that gap to examine how workers close it, what it costs them and what the data reveals about the structural divide between Labor Economy workers and their salaried counterparts.

The findings are striking. When a shortfall hits, higher earners reach for a credit card and move on. Labor workers reach for a shorter, harder list: a loan from a family member, a deferred utility bill, a pawned possession, an extra shift picked up on a weekend. Nine percent report having no option at all. And across both groups, nearly half say the method they used to bridge today’s gap made the next paycheck harder, setting off a cycle that resets every few weeks.

Meanwhile, on-demand pay, a tool purpose-built to address this problem, sits largely unused despite being available to roughly 80% of workers, pointing to a significant and addressable gap in awareness and product design.

In “Never Quite Enough: How 30 Million Workers Borrow from Tomorrow to Pay for Today,” learn how:

The shortfall cycle is self-reinforcing. Labor and non-Labor workers have workarounds they rely on to survive until payday, but they often weaken the next paycheck, creating a loop that formal financial tools are uniquely positioned to interrupt.

Access and adoption are two very different problems. On-demand pay is widely available but rarely used, raising urgent questions for employers, FinTechs and financial institutions about how products reach workers at the moment pressure hits.

Geography is adding a new layer of inequality. Wage trends diverged sharply across five major metros in February, meaning that workers in cities like Phoenix and New York are navigating the same national headwinds with less local cushion than their peers elsewhere.

Download “Never Quite Enough: How 30 Million Workers Borrow from Tomorrow to Pay for Today” to learn more.

About the Wage to Wallet Index

“Never Quite Enough: How 30 Million Workers Borrow from Tomorrow to Pay for Today” is a collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence, WorkWhile and Ingo Payments. Labor Economy workers are defined as those in hands-on roles earning $25 an hour or less, or less than $50,000 a year. Non-Labor workers are typically salaried professionals earning more. Findings on cash short-fall frequency and on-demand pay are based on 2,126 complete responses from U.S. adults surveyed from March 4, 2026, to March 13, 2026. Findings on the methods used to cover essential expense gaps are based on 913 respondents in the same survey who reported a cash flow shortfall in the last 90 days. PYMNTS Intelligence uses a proprietary economic model that combines official government data on consumer spending and income with workforce and occupation mapping to estimate the Labor Economy’s spending power and economic footprint.