60% of Americans Live Paycheck to Paycheck — Here’s 5 Tips To Save Money (2024)

FAQs

Do 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck? ›

Sixty Percent of US Consumers Live Paycheck to Paycheck – That Could Change in 2024. Persistent inflation and increasing prices for essential items, from groceries and utilities to fuel, have left most Americans treading water financially in recent years.

According to PYMNTS Intelligence, 62% of U.S. consumers now live paycheck to paycheck, and that includes 48% of consumers earning more than $100,000 annually.

How Many Americans Are Living Paycheck to Paycheck? A 2023 survey conducted by Payroll.org highlighted that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a 6% increase from the previous year. In other words, more than three-quarters of Americans struggle to save or invest after paying for their monthly expenses.

A majority, 65%, say they live paycheck to paycheck, according to CNBC and SurveyMonkey's recent Your Money International Financial Security Survey, which polled 498 U.S. adults. That's a slight increase from last year's results, which found that 58% of Americans considered themselves to be living paycheck to paycheck.

Sizable portions of high earners live paycheck to paycheck.

Even though they tend to have higher incomes, millennials are more likely to live paycheck to paycheck, as do urban consumers.

According to the newest survey, only 44% of U.S. adults say they would pay an emergency expense of $1,000 or more from their savings.

According to the U.S. Census, only 15.3% of American households make more than $100,000 annually. A $100,000 salary can yield a monthly income of $8,333.33, a biweekly paycheck of $3,846.15, a weekly income of $1,923.08, and a daily income of $384.62 based on 260 working days per year.

Most American households have at least $1,000 in checking or savings accounts. But only about 12% have more than $100,000 in checking and savings.

Based on that figure, an annual income of $500,000 or more would make you rich. The Economic Policy Institute uses a different baseline to determine who constitutes the top 1% and the top 5%. For 2021, you're in the top 1% if you earn $819,324 or more each year. The top 5% of income earners make $335,891 per year.

As of May 2023, more than 1 in 5 Americans have no emergency savings.

How many Americans are broke? ›

In fact, nearly half (48.6%) of Americans consider themselves “broke,” our report found. About two-thirds of Americans (66.2%) also report feeling they are “living paycheck to paycheck.”

According to our survey, roughly 28% of Americans across all four generations currently have less than $1,000 in personal savings, including emergency funds, non-workplace retirement accounts and investments.

9% of Americans have between $100,000 and $200,000 saved, and 4% have between $200,000 and $350,000 saved.

According to the Federal Reserve's most recent Survey of Consumer Finances, the median savings account balance for all families was $8,000 in 2022. Savings account balances can vary greatly depending on income, age, education and race.

The average American has $65,100 in savings — excluding retirement assets — according to Northwestern Mutual's 2023 Planning & Progress Study. That's a 5% increase over the $62,000 reported in 2022.

Living paycheck to paycheck by income

According to a recent PYMNTS report, as of November 2022, 76 percent of U.S. adults who make less than $50,000 are living paycheck to paycheck, compared to 65.9 percent of those making $50,000 to $100,000 and 47.1 percent making more than $100,000.

The report drew on insights that 4,285 U.S. consumers shared with us, as well as supplementary economic data. It found that 62% of all consumers now live paycheck to paycheck, including 36% of those whose annual incomes exceed $200,000. PYMNTS Intelligence has tracked paycheck-to-paycheck data for nearly four years.

Although it seems unbelievable, according to a report by LendingClub, as of January 2024, 60% of United States adults, including more than four in 10 high-income consumers, live paycheck to paycheck. This means that over 160 million Americans are struggling to make ends meet each month.

In fact, nearly half (48.6%) of Americans consider themselves “broke,” our report found. About two-thirds of Americans (66.2%) also report feeling they are “living paycheck to paycheck.”