Washington, D.C., September 24, 2026 — Seventy percent of Americans struggle to afford at least one basic need, including housing, food, health care, or child care, according to the new Family Economic Well-Being Index released today by the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. Nationally, 41 percent of Americans face a health care burden, 33 percent face a housing burden, and nearly one-third face a food burden. The findings show that these affordability pressures extend beyond those in poverty and reach deep into the middle class.
The Index is a new tool that measures the affordability pressures families face in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Looking beyond traditional poverty measures, it examines how much of a household’s income is required to cover housing, food, health care, and child care.
“Affordability is the defining economic issue of the moment,” said Lelaine Bigelow, executive director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. “While families in poverty face the greatest difficulty affording the basics, this struggle reaches well into the middle class. Millions of people are working hard and still can’t get ahead of these costs. The data make clear that affordability isn’t a narrow problem that can be solved with narrow policies. The scale of the response must match the scale of the challenge. ”
Key findings include:
- Most Americans struggle with affordability, as pressures pile up. Seventy percent of Americans experience at least one economic burden measured by the index, with housing, health care, and child care burdens common among middle-class households. One in six people in the U.S. (16%) experiences three or more burdens simultaneously, with these overlapping pressures falling hardest on children, renters, and Black and Latino people.
- Child care costs strain a majority of families with young children. More than half of families with young children experience a child care burden at every income level, except the highest. Nearly seven in 10 (69%) of middle-class families with children under age 6 experience a child care burden. Among Black families with young children, 71 percent experience a child care burden, the highest rate of any racial or ethnic group.
- Renters face substantially greater housing pressures than homeowners. Fifty-two percent of renters face a housing burden, compared with 32 percent of homeowners with a mortgage. Housing burdens are also more common among Black and Latino individuals (43% and 40%, respectively) than among white individuals (29%).
- Children are more likely than any other age group to be affected by affordability challenges. Eighty-one percent of children live in families facing at least one burden related to housing, food, health care, or child care. One in four (25%) live in families facing burdens across three or more of these needs, the highest rate of any age group. Forty-four percent of children also face a food burden.
- Affordability challenges vary sharply across states. The share of people burdened by food costs ranges from 19 percent in New Hampshire to 43 percent in Mississippi. The share burdened by housing costs ranges from 20 percent in West Virginia to 45 percent in California, while the share burdened by health care costs ranges from 20 percent in Washington, D.C., to 50 percent in Texas and Mississippi.
“This Index captures the arithmetic of family life: housing, food, health care, and child care all draw on the same budget at the same time,” said Danilo Trisi, affiliate scholar at the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. “Look at any one of those costs alone, and you miss how little room families really have.”
The Family Economic Well-Being Index provides national and state-level data by income, age, race and ethnicity, and housing status.
Explore the findings: georgetownpoverty.org/family-index.
About the Family Economic Well-Being Index
For each basic need, the Index classifies people into one of four categories: comfortably meeting needs, getting by, burdened, or severely burdened. Across housing, food, child care, and health care, these classifications are based primarily on the percentage of household income required to cover each cost. The analysis uses data from the 2023 American Community Survey, supplemented by additional data on the costs of these necessities. Individuals are considered “burdened” if their household falls into either the burdened or severely burdened category for a given basic need.
The Index uses the following thresholds to define affordability burdens:
|
Dimension (Costs as percent of household income) |
Comfortably meeting needs | Getting by | Burdened | Severely burdened |
| Housing (reported expenditures on rent/mortgage + utilities) | 20% or less | 20–30% | 30–50% | above 50% |
| Food (estimated using USDA Low-Cost Food Plans) | 12% or less | 12–18% | 18–30% | above 30% |
| Child care (estimated using cost of center-based care for children under 13) | below 7% (unadjusted for parental work hours) | below 7% (adjusted for parent working less than full-time) | 7–14% | above 14% |
| Health care (imputed medical out-of-pocket expenses, including health insurance premiums) | 7% or less | 7–10% | 10–17% | above 17% or if a household member is uninsured* |
* If someone is uninsured, but is above 500% of the official poverty line, their household is not automatically classified as severely burdened.
The five income quintiles
The Index divides households into five equal groups by income, from the lowest fifth to the highest.
| Income group | Household income range, family of four |
| Bottom income quintile | Below $50,902 |
| Lower-middle income quintile | $50,902 to $78,600 |
| Middle income quintile | $78,600 to $109,392 |
| Upper-middle income quintile | $109,392 to $156,718 |
| Top income quintile | $156,719 and above |
The Index also measures how often people face affordability burdens across more than one basic need. The complete methodology and state-level findings are available at www.georgetownpoverty.org/family-index.
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About the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality
The Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality is a think tank developing timely, research-driven policy solutions to end poverty in the United States. Grounded in people’s lived realities, our work applies a racial and gender lens to economic policy and pairs ambitious ideas with practical pathways for change. We work to build public systems that strengthen economic security and opportunity for everyone.