Wells Fargo CEO Says Low-Income Consumers ‘Living on the Edge’

Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said Wednesday (Sept. 10) that low-income consumers are “living on the edge.”

Speaking with CNBC’s Squawk Box, Scharf said the bank’s data shows that these consumers are spending the money they have and that their balances are below pre-pandemic levels.

In contrast, high-income consumers are thriving, per Wells Fargo data, and companies are in “really great shape,” Scharf said, according to a CNBC report.

“There is this big dichotomy between higher-income and lower-income consumers which continues and is a real issue,” Scharf said, per the report.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Financial Fragility in the Middle: How Income and History Shape Consumer Risk” found that the share of United States consumers living paycheck to paycheck increased by 3.5 percentage points between June and July.

More than 70% of U.S. consumers live paycheck to paycheck, with middle-income households making up a rapidly growing share, according to the report.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Monday (Sept. 8) that in terms of household finance, the share of households reporting they are better off than a year ago edged down to 20%.

In its August 2025 Survey of Consumer Expectations, the New York Fed also said median household income growth expectations decreased to 2.9%. However, expectations improved for some groups. Consumers over age 60 saw expected income growth rise to 2.5% from 2.3% in July, while those earning less than $50,000 a year also reported an increase to 2.5%.

It was reported in August that after years of rapid growth for low-income workers, a slowdown has set in. Average earnings for workers in the leisure/hospitality space — the lowest paid workers in the groups tracked by the Department of Labor — rose 3.5% year over year.

That was a shift from December 2021, when leisure/hospitality workers were up 14%. The workers’ gains at that time were driven in part by the pandemic because when businesses in that sector reopened, they had a demand for staff, while workers in low-wage roles could demand better pay.

It was also reported in August that off-price retailers were seeing greater traffic as value-seeking shoppers sought more affordable prices on everyday items.