It’s A Crisis! A Whopping 67 Percent Of American Workers Are Living Paycheck To Paycheck In 2025
When two-thirds of all the workers in your entire country are just barely scraping by from month to month, you have got a major crisis on your hands. For a long time, our standard of living has been going down and the middle class has been shrinking. But in recent years, those two trends have accelerated. We have now reached a point where it takes 5 million dollars to live the American Dream for a lifetime. Needless to say, the vast majority of the population will never come close to making that sort of money. But most Americans continue to strive to live a middle class lifestyle, and as a result most people are teetering on the brink of financial disaster in this day and age.
According to a survey that was recently conducted by PNC Bank, 67 percent of U.S. workers are now living paycheck to paycheck…
A growing share of U.S. workers are struggling to cover expenses as everyday costs continue to weigh heavily on household budgets, according to new survey findings.
PNC Bank’s annual Financial Wellness in the Workplace Report shows that 67 percent of workers now say they are living paycheck to paycheck, up from 63 percent in 2024.
The report surveyed 1,000 U.S. workers aged 21 to 69 who work full time at companies with more than 100 workers.
There are two very important points that I want to make about this survey.
First of all, it only covers people that actually have a job.
There are vast numbers of other Americans that are not employed and that are deeply struggling right now.
So when you take that into account, this survey is even more shocking.
Secondly, it is clear that we are rapidly moving in the wrong direction.
It was bad enough that 63 percent of U.S. workers were living paycheck to paycheck last year, but now we are at 67 percent.
A four percent jump in a single year is a very troubling sign.
The primary reason why so many employed Americans are struggling financially is due to the rapidly rising cost of living.
For example, the price of coffee has risen by almost 21 percent over the past 12 months…
Coffee drinkers are in for a jolt long before their first sip.
Retail coffee prices in the United States in August jumped nearly 21% compared to the same month last year — the largest annual jump since October 1997, according to the latest Consumer Price Index, released Thursday. On a monthly basis, coffee prices rose 4%, the most in 14 years.
The vast majority of the coffee that we drink is imported, and Brazil is the number one source…
Coffee, for instance, is largely imported because there are only a handful of places in the U.S. where the beans can be grown, such as Hawaii and Puerto Rico. About 80% of unroasted coffee imports are sourced from Latin America, primarily from Brazil, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Products from Brazil that are shipped to the U.S. now face a 50% tariff, according to the White House.
If you drink coffee, you will want to brace yourself, because prices are only going to go higher in the months ahead.
Of course just about everything has become significantly more expensive, and this is pushing many consumers over the edge.
I recently wrote about how subprime auto loan delinquencies in the U.S. have risen to an all-time high, and now we have learned that one of the largest subprime auto loan lenders in the U.S. has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy…
A company that provides auto loans to families with poor or no credit has filed for bankruptcy.
Tricolor Holdings, a Dallas-based car fixing and credit company, has filed for Chapter 7 — or liquidation — bankruptcy. The filing typically means the company will quickly go out of business.
The company’s demise is a warning sign for the US economy: Americans are racking up a huge amount of debt to keep their cars, while a record amount can’t keep up with the payments.
This is just the beginning.
There will be more failures.
At this stage, most of us can feel the change that is in the air. In fact, it is being reported that consumer confidence “dropped sharply in September”…
Consumer confidence dropped sharply in September to its lowest level in four months, according to preliminary data released Friday, as Americans expressed growing anxiety about job security and the persistence of high prices.
The University of Michigan’s closely watched index of consumer sentiment fell to 55.4 in September from 58.2 in August, missing economists’ expectations and reflecting what survey director Joanne Hsu described as “multiple vulnerabilities in the economy.”
And the confidence that Americans have in being able to find a new job has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded…
In the latest sign of trouble for the U.S. labor market, confidence in the ability to move from one job to another has hit a record low, according to a New York Federal Reserve survey released Monday.
Respondents to the central bank’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations for August indicated a 44.9% probability of finding another job after losing their current one. The reading tumbled 5.8 percentage points from the prior month and is the lowest in the survey’s history dating back to June 2013.
If you are thriving in this extremely difficult economic environment, good for you.
For most of the population, things are very painful at this moment.
The ranks of the middle class are steadily thinning out, poverty is growing all around us, and more Americans are homeless than ever before in our entire history.
In Los Angeles, one homeless encampment has become so enormous that it is now being described as a full-blown “city”…
A sprawling homeless encampment in Los Angeles is drawing ire from neighbors who say the makeshift shelter has grown into a full “city” of its own, complete with working electricity and a recreational area featuring a tennis court, garden and barbecue pit.
The encampment sits on a vacant Koreatown lot surrounded by apartment buildings and other structures, according to ABC 7.
“The reason why people are sleeping here is because you leaders are sleeping on not taking initiative and action to clean this place up,” neighborhood resident Daniel King told the station.
Most Americans are just a few bad breaks from losing everything.
In fact, there are already millions of Americans that have lost everything, and those that are on the bottom levels of the economic pyramid are becoming increasingly desperate.
When things really start hitting the fan in this country, vast numbers of extremely desperate people will cause tremendous chaos throughout our society.
Things didn’t have to turn out this way.
If we would have made much different decisions over the past 50 or 60 years, we would have gotten much different results.
But we just kept doing things the wrong way, and now we shall reap what we have sown.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.
People need to start having a different mindset. One where they become more self reliant and less reliant on others to do everything. Like learning how to cook and eating out so often. Like growing your own veggies and learning to can.
Little doubt exists that the state of this country's financial condition is terrible. (Global finances are no better, and in many countries, worse). Although there has been a massive acceleration these last few years, the downward slide has been occurring since 1913. That year marked the establishment of the private Federal Reserve, as controller of the dollar and manager of the economy, and the imposition on taxpayers of the federal income tax. There are four parties that are to blame: the Federal Reserve (and the entire system of central banks), the Federal government (mostly Congress with their massive budgets), the big banks (you know, too big to fail) and Big Business (multi-national). Actually, there are five guilty parties. The fifth party is the taxpayers/consumers (foolishly lacking fiscal responsibility by spending above their income). This has all been by design, to eventually collapse the entire financial system, by which the super wealthy will steal the remainder of our wealth (thus the destruction of the middle class. The dollar is very weak, having lost most of its purchasing power, in spite of looking like it is strong. At some point in the relatively near future, the whole system and with it, the economy, will collapse, to be replaced by CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency). This will be money existing only in a digital, book entry form. We will have virtually no control over this money, which can't be saved or spent according to our needs and desires.
Considering the current state of the economy with massive debt by the government (actually, it is our debt) and consumer debt, there is almost no way out of this predicament. The President has little power, and, in reality, is not helping.
The worst is yet to come. Prepare as best you can. Pay off loans if you can so that you don't lose everything. Convert as much cash, as is practical, to precious metals and commodities that are handy for trade or barter. Be prepared to defend your money and other things which will be of value to desperate thieves. Be discreet in your spending and don't display your wealth or possessions. Buckle up because we are in for a very rough ride.