Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Overall Financial Well-Being

The share of adults doing okay financially or living comfortably held steady in 2025, though several demographic groups, including low-income, young, and Black adults, reported meaningful declines.² Price increases remained the most common financial concern. Concerns about finding or keeping a job were less common but increased compared with 2024. Favorable perceptions of people's local economy and the national economy declined over the prior year and remained much lower than in 2019, before the pandemic.

Current Financial Situation

Near the end of 2025, 73 percent of adults reported "doing okay" financially (39 percent) or "living comfortably" (34 percent). The rest reported either "just getting by" (19 percent) or "finding it difficult to get by" (8 percent). The share of adults doing okay financially or living comfortably has remained at or near 73 percent since 2022, down from the previous plateau of 75 percent observed from 2018 to 2020 (figure 1).³

As in previous years, adults with at least a bachelor's degree continued to report higher financial well-being than did adults with lower levels of education. Eighty-six percent of adults with at least a bachelor's degree reported doing okay financially or living comfortably, compared with 41 percent of those with less than a high school degree.

The gap in well-being by education edged up, driven by a sharp decline among adults with less than a high school degree (figure 2).⁴ Further, well-being declined among both younger and older adults with less than a high school degree, indicating the decline for those with less than a high school degree was not driven solely by younger adults.

Differences in financial well-being across racial and ethnic groups also persisted in 2025. Eighty-two percent of Asian adults were doing okay or living comfortably, followed by 79 percent of White adults, 62 percent of Hispanic adults, and 60 percent of Black adults (figure 3).⁵

Black adults saw further declines in financial well-being, with the share doing okay or living comfortably down 5 percentage points from 2024.⁶ In contrast, the share doing okay or living comfortably was up among White adults and statistically indistinguishable from the prior year among Asian and Hispanic adults (figure 3).

Financial well-being continued to differ by several other dimensions, including income, age, disability status, metropolitan status, and neighborhood income designation (table 1).⁷ For instance, 63 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 reported doing okay or living comfortably, markedly lower than the 83 percent of adults age 60 or over who did so. This gap in well-being widened over the prior year, primarily driven by a decline in financial well-being among adults ages 18 to 24. This decline may reflect, at least in part, the more challenging job market facing young adults (see the "Employment and Job Quality" section of this report).

Table 1. Doing okay or living comfortably financially (by demographic characteristics)

As a complement to the question asking how people are managing financially these days, the survey also asks respondents whether they are better or worse off financially than they were 12 months earlier. This question provides more insight into whether people's financial situation improved or worsened over the prior year, as some individuals may have felt worse off financially than they were a year earlier, for instance, even if they felt they were still doing okay overall (or that their financial well-being was improving even if they were still finding it difficult to get by overall).

Twenty-eight percent of adults said they were worse off financially than a year earlier, similar to the prior year and down from a series high of 35 percent in 2022. That said, the share doing worse off remains above the levels seen before the pandemic (figure 4). The share doing about the same as a year earlier ticked up to 49 percent, while the share who said they were better off held at 23 percent.

Financial Challenges

The survey further explored financial well-being by asking people about their financial challenges or concerns, including prices and jobs. "Price increases" remained the most common financial concern. Just above 9 in 10 adults said price increases were a "minor" or "major concern," unchanged from 2024 (figure 5). Price increases as a major concern did decline over this period, though generally remained flat among lower-income and younger adults.⁸

Lower-income and younger adults were also more likely to be concerned about price increases overall. For example, 66 percent of adults with income under $50,000 said that price increases were a major concern, compared with 42 percent among those with income over $100,000.

People's concerns about "finding or keeping a job" increased over the prior year, consistent with other indications of a solid but softening labor market (see the "Employment and Job Quality" section). Forty-two percent of adults said finding or keeping a job was either a minor or major concern, up from 37 percent in 2024 (figure 5). Increases in the share concerned about finding or keeping a job occurred among all income levels and ages.

That said, similar to demographic patterns in concerns about price increases, lower-income and younger adults were more likely to have these concerns overall. In 2025, adults with income less than $50,000 were nearly three times as likely as those with income of $50,000 or more to say finding or keeping a job was a major concern (30 percent versus 11 percent), and adults ages 18 to 29 were about twice as likely as those age 30 or older to say so (31 percent versus 14 percent).

Other concerns, like "retirement savings," "housing costs or availability," and "medical debt or care" generally remained at similar levels to 2024.

National and Local Economic Conditions

Along with questions about their own financial circumstances, people were asked to rate the national economy and their local economy as "excellent," "good," "only fair," or "poor." About one-fourth of adults rated the national economy good or excellent in 2025, down 3 percentage points over the prior year and well below the one-half of adults who did so in 2019, before the pandemic (figure 6).

Overall, people's perceptions of their local economy were slightly less favorable in 2025. The 45 percent of people rating their local economy as good or excellent was down 1 percentage point from the prior year, yet still above the series low of 38 percent in 2022. However, changes in perceptions diverged sharply by metropolitan status. The share of adults rating their local economy as good or excellent fell 3 percentage points in metro areas yet rose 6 percentage points in non-metro areas.⁹ As a result, while people living in metro areas continued to rate their local economy more favorably than those in non-metro areas, this gap shrank considerably in 2025 (table 2).

Table 2. Self-assessment of local economy as good or excellent (by census region and metropolitan status)

References