Around 40% of U.S. citizens live with precarious financial-economic instability. The 40% figure occurs in multiple credible studies. This is a rundown of those studies: 40%, 40%, 40%, 40%, and 40%.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's survey "Making Ends Meet" of November 2024 shows that 42.3% of households could not pay normal expenses after 30 days if they lost their main source of income. The U.S. Census's Pulse Survey reports that 45.6% report "very stressful" the price increases over the last two months in 2024. The United Way's report, ALICE, also says 42% live below their survival budget, which is around $91,000 per year for a family of four. The U.S. Census's Supplemental Poverty Measure, 2025, reports that 41.5% of U.S. households live with incomes below 200% OPL, official poverty level. Over 40% of U.S. population experiences insecurity and financial hardship. The Brookings Institute reports, the "Percent of U.S. families with total resources below the family budget, by country and family structure" is 43%. (How many are in need in the US? The poverty rate is the tip of the iceberg. June, 2024)
Repeatedly this portion appears -- 41.5%, 42%, 45.6%, 42.3% and 43%. This confirms a message about financial insecurity in the U.S.A..
We have extreme inequality, and a near majority of citizens experience hardship, insecurity, frustration, and stress. About 20% additionally carry credit card balances forward each month and live paycheck to paycheck, we can call it 60%. The Pulse survey has a table about anxiety and worry (Health Tables, Table 1). The inability to control or stop worrying is also at this 40% level.
I try to report the accurate, factual conditions of the U.S. economy, and then I prescribe the solutions to this malady --- see my December 2024 essay at this blog. Inequality is extreme. The Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds report, page 10, shows that total annual national income stands at $25.6 trillion. Total income divided by all households shows average income over $191,000. Total "household net worth" divided by all households shows average household net worth at $1.355 million. Yet 40% of households owned about 0.1% of the nation's wealth, which equals an average wealth holding of about $3,400 per adult (according to the Credit Suisse bank's Global Wealth Databook, page 140, year 2022). While 10% own 75.9%, and that equals an average savings of $10.1 million per household. Inequality in the U.S. is severe and extreme. Economic 'precarity' is well-known but few politicians seem to know its pervasiveness and depth, nor are they serious about programs to relieve this malaise.
The "average weekly earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers", about 82% of all full-time workers and 83% of all workers including part-time workers, was higher in 1973 than in 2025. See the BLS web table here: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000031
"Median usual weekly earnings" for full-time workers increased by 12% since 1979. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
While the overall economy, Real (inflation adjusted) per capita growth increased by 142%.
The RealTime Inequality web page, a product of University of California, Berkeley economists, shows that from 1976 to 2023 the average real income for some increased hardly and for others hugely, depending on low and high income groups. Between 1976 and 2023 the lower-earning 50% of U.S. adults saw their pre-tax incomes grow by $3,000, from $15,500 to $18,500. The middle group, from 50% to 90%, saw their incomes grow from $57,400 to $92,100, up $34,700. The top 9%, from the 90th to 99th percentile, saw their incomes grow from $123,000 to $269,000, and increase of $146,000; and the top 1% saw their incomes grow from $481,000 to $1,900,000, a gain of $1,429,000. (compared to the lower 50% whose gain was just $3,000).
Half saw a $3,000 increase, and 1% saw a $1,429,000 increase -- that in a nutshell is the problem.
The RAND Corporation also has two reports on Income Trends -- (https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-1.html and
https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-2.html). The latest report states ". . . if we had the income distribution from 1975, the majority of workers (the bottom 90 percent by income) would have made an additional $3.9 trillion dollars in 2023. (page 4)
With a worker base of 160 million, 90% is 144 million. Each of the 144 million would have $27,083 more income "if we had the income distribution of 1975". That is huge! The RealTime Inequality web page shows much the same income shift.
The national GDP per capita since 1973 increased by 142%. See here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA
Yet in the same years wages for 80% decreased by 2%. This is a sick economy.
Now, I have to admit, if I were reading this essay I would never have read this far. All these really depressing numbers and facts. I apologize. I just like the hammer, because a hammer seems necessary. There are so many dull, stupid and lunatic deniers and indifferent, even callous ignorers.
I'm really trying to hit someone on the head with a sledge hammer. I admit the abuse.
Look, it's no fun harping on this mess.
Make America Great Again does not mean giving big tax cuts to the wealthiest and cutting labor power, worker income, and household stability. That formula is MAW, Make America Worser.
I usually say at this point: STOP, don't go further. So, again: stop. I'm going to add some more data, but I congratulate your forebearance , endurance, tolerance, and incredible fortitude for having survived this tirade of bad news.
Hope you enjoyed it at some level.
Let's get together and laugh a little, when we get our act together and stop fighting among ourselves. !!
Yours, Ben Leet. See my profile for a little more about me.
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Meanwhile, the following:
"Had that bottom 90 percent continued during the past half-century to make the same share of the national income they’d had in 1975, RAND calculates that by 2023 they would have made an additional $79 trillion. [over the period 1975 to 2025, Today the total private wealth stands at $180 trillion, for a comparison.] Just in the year 2023, they would have made an additional $3.9 trillion. As the size of the bottom 90 percent of the U.S. workforce is roughly 140 million people, that means that the average earner would have made about $28,000 more in 2023 than they actually did."
I calculate, using the web page RealTime Inequality, that the lower 90% of households would have around $30,000 each more income each and every year had the income growth of the lower 90% matched the overall growth of the total economy. This is quite a conceptual shift, the society would be improved -- poverty would be eliminated, insecurity, precarity, anxiety about income needs, etc., would be eliminated. The crime rate would drop, people toting guns in holsters in the supermarket would be eliminated. It would be a different USA.
We have the Economic Policy Institute, the MIT (Massachusettes Institute of Technology), and the ALICE survival budget; all give estimates of the minimum income needed for a four-person household.
The Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator says $89,260 is needed for a family of 2 adults and 2 children.
The MIT amount is $$83,000.
The ALICE amount is $96,480.
The U.S. Census Official Poverty Level is $32,150 for 2025 for a family of four.
The EPI's minimum basic budget is 2.7 times more than the Census's official poverty level, OPL. In other words, $32,150 times 2.7 equals the EPI Basic Budget for a family of four.
The estimates for the MIT Living Wage and the ALICE are roughly the same story.
The ALICE 2022 survival budget is $96,480 -- they chose an example in Ohio, Franklin County. "For a family of four with an infant and a preschooler, the budget (including tax credits) increased from $75,156 to $91,284, more than three times the 2022 FPL of $27,750. Excluding tax credits, costs for a family of four totaled $96,480 in 2022, up from $90,360 in 2021."
In my search for a more detailed understanding of the labor market and pay levels, I look at the Job Quality Index from Buffalo NYU.
We see what the average nonsupervisory worker is earning (nonsupervisory workers total 111 million workers, or 82% of the full-time workers), We all see the average weekly pay (and yearly pay) for all 111 million, and also for the 45% who earn above the average for all, and we see the average incomes for the 55% who are below average for all -- currently the three are, respectively: $56,020 - average for all, and $76,544 the average for 45% and $38,786 the average for 55%. That covers 111 million non-supervisory workers.
$56,020 -- $76,544 -- and $38,786. The average for the higher 45% is about double the average for the lower 55%.
Two average low-wage workers will earn about $79,000. And if one is a part-time worker, then that household's income would be $20,000 plus $37,786, or $57,786/year. Both amounts are well under the survival budget of MIT, EPI, and ALICE.
And the total national income, says the Fed's Flow of Funds, recent Jan. 9, 2026 report: $25.613 trillion. Divide that by 134 million households: $191,000 average household income/year. And average wealth is $1.35 million per household (same report, see pages 10 and 2).
The Supplemental Poverty Measure, 2024, shows 41.5% of households have incomes below 200% (double) the Official Poverty Level (OPL). (page 12, Sept 2025 report for year 2024)
Moreover, the U.S. Census shows in the Pulse Survey of Sept. 2024 that 45.6% report "very stressful" regarding the "level of stress caused by price increases over the past two months". 45.6% report "very stressful", another 25.7% report "moderately stressful", and 21.8% report "mildly", and only 5.8% report "not at all". As a society we are not doing well.
Reinforcing this pattern is the "Making Ends Meet" survey from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of Nov. 2024. It reports that 42.3% of households could not pay normal expenses for more than 30 days, they "do not have the savings or ability to borrow to protect themselves from an income fall in the future" (page 18) Add to the list the Brookings report and the Pulse survey:
40%, 40%, 40%, 40%, 40%. Seems like a lot of agreement about "personal financial insecurity". Precarity -- Insecurity -- Anxiety!
