More than one-third of American adults are struggling to make ends meet, and some demographics groups are having more trouble than others: in a 2024 Census survey, nearly half the multiracial population reported having a hard time, along with 46.0% of Hispanics and 40.0% of cisgender women.
Just under 20% of adults said they found it somewhat difficult to afford their usual household expenses in the previous week, and 17.3% found it very difficult. The rest found it either a little (28.9%) or not at all (34.0%) difficult.
Which age groups are struggling the most?
Adults younger than 55 are having more trouble paying the bills than older adults. Over 40% of adults ages 18 to 54 reported at least some difficulty, compared to 36.4% of 55- to 64-year-olds and 23.2% of those 65 and older.
Among older folks, more than half of people 65 and older reported having no trouble at all. Seniors were the only age group reporting a “no trouble” rate higher than 35%.
Women and transgender people have higher rates of difficulty
Parsing the data along gender lines, 40.0% of cisgender women and 41.7% of transgender people were having at least some trouble with expenses, as were 51.8% of people who indicated they didn’t fit into any gendered category. Cisgender men reported the least trouble, with 33.0% finding their expenses somewhat or very difficult.
LGBT respondents overall reported similar levels of struggle to people who did not identify as LGBT — 37.8% of those identifying as LGBT had trouble with expenses compared to 36.4% of people who didn’t.
Subscribe to get unbiased, data-driven insights sent to your inbox weekly.
Does difficulty covering expenses vary by race?
Breaking down the data along racial and ethnic lines, Asian and white adults have the least trouble covering bills among included racial and ethnic groups, with 30.8% and 33.0% reporting some difficulty. Meanwhile, 46.0% of Hispanic adults and 44.6% of Black adults were having at least some trouble, and multiracial people had the highest reported rate of difficulty — 49.2%.
How does household structure impact challenges with covering expenses?
Household structure was another factor impacting the stress of covering the costs of an average week. Divorced people and people who had never married had higher rates of difficulty (45.9% and 42.1%) than married people (32.8%). And the larger the household, the more likely its inhabitants were to report trouble: Households with children were more likely than those without to say they were struggling at least somewhat by a difference of over 13 points (45.7% to 32.6%).
Read more about the current standard of living and get the data straight to your inbox with our weekly newsletter.
Recent economy articles
Read data analyses written by the USAFacts team.
Page sources and methodology
All of the data on the page was sourced directly from government agencies. The analysis and final review was performed by USAFacts.
Census Bureau
Household Pulse Survey
