Economic Crises

Since 2016, the American Family Survey has included a series of questions exploring Americans’ experiences with six significant economic challenges, including the following:

• Were you ever hungry, but didn’t eat because you couldn’t afford enough food?
• Did you not pay the full amount of an important bill (like rent, mortgage, or a utility bill)?
• Did you borrow or receive money from friends or family to help pay the bills?
• Did you move in with other people even for a little while because of financial problems?
• Did you stay at a shelter, in an abandoned building, an automobile or any other place not meant for regular housing, even for one night?
• Was there anyone in your household who needed to see a doctor or go to the hospital but couldn’t go because of the cost?

In some years during the 2010s, as many as four in 10 Americans reported experiencing at least one of these crises.

Perhaps surprisingly, the percentage experiencing crisis dropped dramatically during the COVID19 crisis (2020- 2021), though these pandemic years were also accompanied by substantial financial assistance to families. As such aid subsided, the percentage of respondents reporting a crisis rose again, and appears to have stabilized close to pre-pandemic levels. In 2025, 35% of Americans reported experiencing one of these events.

These overall trends, however, mask substantial differences across the population. Examining variation in economic crises by income, family structure, race-ethnicity, and parental status reveals that some groups are much more vulnerable to economic shocks — groups worthy of further consideration by policymakers, civic leaders, and others.

The likelihood of experiencing an economic crisis varies considerably by income group. Though all income groups experienced the pandemic decline followed by a subsequent rebound, Americans making less than $40,000 annually are more likely to report a crisis than those making more than $80,000 per year. In 2025, for instance, half of all low-income Americans reported experiencing an economic crisis, compared to fewer than one in 4 of those in the high-income group, a difference of more than 25 percentage points.

Since 2016, unmarried Americans have consistently been more likely than their married counterparts to experience an economic crisis. The gap between the two groups has averaged around ten percentage points, though it has widened and narrowed at different points in time. Both groups saw their lowest reported crisis rates during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, reflecting the widespread financial assistance provided to households during that period. Since then, economic stress has rebounded, though it remains somewhat below pre-pandemic peaks. In 2025, 39% of unmarried Americans reported experiencing at least one economic crisis in the past year, compared to 29% of married Americans. The enduring difference between these two groups underscores how marriage continues to serve as a stabilizing factor against economic hardship, though neither group is immune to broader financial volatility.

Rates of economic crisis continue to differ sharply across racial and ethnic groups. Throughout the past decade, Black and Hispanic Americans have reported the highest levels of financial hardship, while Asian and White Americans have reported lower rates. In 2025, 44% of Black Americans and 42% of Hispanic Americans reported experiencing at least one economic crisis in the past year, compared to 31% of White Americans and 25% of Asian Americans. The persistent disparities highlight how longstanding structural inequities — such as those tied to income, employment opportunities, and wealth accumulation — continue to shape economic vulnerability in the United States.

Having children in the home remains strongly associated with greater economic vulnerability, although the gap appears to be shrinking. Throughout the past decade, Americans raising children have consistently been more likely to experience a financial crisis than those without children. In many years, the gap between these groups has exceeded 15 percentage points. Both groups saw notable declines in reported crises during 2020 and 2021, but the difference between parents and non-parents persisted. In 2025, 39% of respondents with children in the home said they had faced at least one economic crisis in the past year, compared to 34% of those without children. While this narrowing of the gap is hopeful, the data suggest that childrearing continues to be a key driver of financial strain for many families, especially in periods of limited external support.

Overall, economic hardship is shaped by multiple factors — income, race, marital status, and children. Academic literature consistently demonstrates that race-ethnicity intersects with family structure and income to produce distinct outcomes: for example, Black and Hispanic families show higher rates of crisis than White or Asian families at comparable income and marital statuses, pointing to the broad inequalities they face. Parenthood consistently amplifies risk across groups, suggesting the costs of childrearing remain a major source of financial strain. Meanwhile, being married provides protection, but this protection is often insufficient in the face of economic difficulty. Overall, the data suggest that family demography and structural disadvantage interact in shaping economic precarity.

What specific types of economic crises are most common for respondents in our sample? Over the past decade, between 10% and 20% of Americans said they either borrowed money or did not pay the full amount for bills they received — the most common crises. Approximately 10% of Americans reported being hungry but unable to afford food, and a similar number were unable to see a doctor due to cost. A smaller percentage, though still about one in every 20 Americans, struggled with housing and were forced to either move in with friends or family and/or (less commonly) stay at a shelter or were otherwise unhoused. Importantly, the financial aid that many Americans received in 2020 and 2021 and the eviction moratorium in effect until late 2021 seem to have positively impacted Americans’ ability to meet their basic shelter and food needs, indicated by clear dips in economic crises during the pandemic. These numbers have since returned to pre-pandemic levels, though these numbers did decline modestly from 2024 levels in 2025.

Many Americans live close to the edge of an economic crisis. Almost one in three report that they could not make it even a month on their savings. Among the unemployed, 38% say their savings would run out in less than four weeks, and the picture is only somewhat better for the employed, with 29% saying they could not last more than a month.The data thus show that a large portion of Americans remain just weeks away from serious financial trouble.

A decade of data from the American Family Survey highlights both the persistence and the complexity of economic crises in American households. Together, these findings suggest that economic stability and family well-being are deeply intertwined. Economic hardship is not only an individual challenge but a family one, shaping parents’ ability to provide stability and opportunity for their children. Policies that strengthen families — by supporting parents, expanding opportunity for low-income households, and fostering the conditions under which marriage can thrive — may help reduce the frequency and severity of household crises. Strengthening both the economic and family supports that sustain marriage and parenting may be among the most effective ways to protect children and promote lasting household resilience.

METHODOLOGY NOTE

Between August 6-18, 2025, YouGov interviewed 3317 nationally representative respondents who were then matched down to a sample of 3000 to produce the final dataset. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race, and education. The frame was constructed by stratified sampling from the full 2023 American Community Survey (ACS) one-year sample with selection within strata by weighted sampling with replacements (using the person weights on the public use file).

The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores. The matched cases and the frame were combined and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. The propensity score function included age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of education, region, and home ownership. The propensity scores were grouped into deciles of the estimated propensity score in the frame and post-stratified according to these deciles.

The weights were then post-stratified on 2020 and 2024 presidential vote choice as well as a four-way stratification of gender, age (four categories), race (four categories), and education (four categories) to produce the final weight. The overall margin of error is +/- 2.1%.