Share of Bank of America Checking Households Living Paycheck to Paycheck
Nearly 24%, 0.3 percentage points higher than in 2024
Where the Share of Bank of America Checking Households Living Paycheck to Paycheck stands now
The Share of Bank of America Checking Households Living Paycheck to Paycheck was 24.0% in 2025. It has been higher than the year before for two straight years.
What it means for households: U.S. Savings Rate & Emergency Fund Statistics Behind on Your Mortgage?
How the Share of Bank of America Checking Households Living Paycheck to Paycheck has moved since 2023
Share of Bank of America Checking Households Living Paycheck to Paycheck: up since 2023
Share of households in Bank of America's checking-account sample spending 95%+ of income on necessities, data through Q3 of each year: 24.0% in 2025, up from 23.7% a year earlier. Annual, 2023–2025.
What the Share of Bank of America Checking Households Living Paycheck to Paycheck measures
Measurement basis: Bank of America Institute's estimate of the share of households in its own checking-account sample whose necessary spending exceeds 95 percent of income. The sample is households that have held a U.S. Bank of America checking account for at least a year, whose payment channels the bank can observe, and who appear to bank primarily with Bank of America; Bank of America does not publish its size, and it is not a sample of U.S. households. Bank of America publishes the current reading rounded to a whole percent and qualified with “nearly”, not as a decimal. The two earlier observations are read from the report's chart, which prints no value for either year. The most recent observation covers data through the third quarter of its publication year.
A higher rate is worse for households.
Share of Bank of America Checking Households Living Paycheck to Paycheck by year, 2023 to 2025
| Year | Rate (%) | Change from a year earlier (percentage points) |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 24.0 | +0.3 |
| 2024 | 23.7 | +0.7 |
| 2023 | 23.0 | — |
Annual · Bank of America Institute
Counties with the highest safety net and buffer scores
There's no county figure for this measure, so this list uses the safety net and buffer part of our County Distress Index.
| Rank | County | Score (0–100) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Choctaw County, OK | 94.8 |
| 2 | Stewart County, GA | 94.2 |
| 3 | Noxubee County, MS | 94.2 |
| 4 | Hudspeth County, TX | 94 |
| 5 | Brooks County, TX | 94 |
| 6 | Lake County, TN | 94 |
| 7 | Duval County, TX | 93.9 |
| 8 | Ripley County, MO | 93.5 |
| 9 | Dunklin County, MO | 93.3 |
| 10 | Quitman County, GA | 93.2 |
Questions about living paycheck to paycheck
What share of Americans live paycheck to paycheck?
There is no single national figure. Bank of America's measure covers its own checking customers: nearly 24% of them spent more than 95% of income on necessities in 2025. Other widely quoted numbers, some near half of adults, come from surveys that ask people whether they feel they live paycheck to paycheck. Those measure something different and should not be set beside this one.
Is the share going up?
Within Bank of America's latest report, nearly 24% of households met the test in 2025. That is 0.3 percentage points higher than the report's figure for 2024. Earlier reports used a different time window and gave different figures for the same year, so do not compare numbers across reports.
How does Bank of America decide who lives paycheck to paycheck?
A household counts if its spending on necessities in a quarter is more than 95% of its regular income. Necessities include housing, childcare, insurance, gasoline, taxes, general retail and credit card payments to other lenders. The bank also publishes a looser 90% version as an alternative.
Where does the data come from?
Bank of America Institute builds it from anonymized, aggregated deposit and spending data for its own customers, not from a survey. It has published about once a year, most recently in November 2025, with each year's figure based on data through the third quarter. There is no fixed release schedule.
Sources and method for the Share of Bank of America Checking Households Living Paycheck to Paycheck
- Bank of America Institute Measurement basis: Bank of America Institute's estimate of the share of households in its own checking-account sample whose necessary spending exceeds 95 percent of income. The sample is households that have held a U.S. Bank of America checking account for at least a year, whose payment channels the bank can observe, and who appear to bank primarily with Bank of America; Bank of America does not publish its size, and it is not a sample of U.S. households. Bank of America publishes the current reading rounded to a whole percent and qualified with “nearly”, not as a decimal. The two earlier observations are read from the report's chart, which prints no value for either year. The most recent observation covers data through the third quarter of its publication year. We use the annual figures as published, from 2023 through 2025, with no adjustment of our own. Bank of America Institute’s report
We write with assistance from AI tools. Figures come from the data and sources named on this page.