According to the annual survey by the Federal Reserve, the vast majority of Americans are worried about high prices in 2025, and an increasing number of people are also anxious about the job market.
Last year, job growth was nearly zero. 42% of adults said that finding or keeping a job was something they were not too worried about or very worried about, a proportion higher than the 37% in 2024. According to the Federal Reserve’s 2025 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, about 90% of respondents said they were worried about rising prices.
This survey, conducted in October, preceded the war with Iran that pushed up gasoline prices and triggered the fastest inflation in years by several months.
Voter discontent over high prices helped President Donald Trump return to the White House, and this factor is expected to play a role again in the upcoming midterm elections. The report emphasizes that in the first year of Trump’s second term, the American public’s perception of the price issue has hardly improved.
The report shows that last year, 73% of adults said their financial situation was “fair” or “comfortable”, the same as the survey result in 2024. However, for those without a high school diploma, African Americans, people under 30, and those with an annual income of less than $25,000, this proportion has dropped significantly.
The report highlights the division within the US consumer group. The high-income group has benefited from the strong rise in the stock market, with their spending continuing to grow, while the spending of low-income consumers is increasingly restricted.
Nearly a quarter of renters said they had fallen behind on rent in the past year; about half of adults under 30 said they lived with their parents; and about 47% of adults under 30 said they had received financial assistance from someone outside their family in the past year.
The survey also asked about the use of artificial intelligence for the first time. One quarter of the employees said they had used generative artificial intelligence at work in the past month, and 81% of the users said that artificial intelligence had saved them time. Users of artificial intelligence were more inclined to expect it to enhance their career development rather than replace their jobs.
