Money Matters - NEFE Financial Survey

 The National Endowment for Financial Education® (NEFE®) has collected new data through its nationwide opinion polling to assess the financial well-being of U.S. adults at the start of 2026. Overall, respondents ended 2025 reporting a negative perception and outlook for their finances, with 88% feeling some form of financial stress as they begin the new year and 77% saying they experienced a financial setback in 2025. Both results are among the highest percentages seen throughout polling NEFE has conducted on financial well-being over the past several years.

 

“For nearly a decade, NEFE’s nationwide polling has explored the financial well-being of Americans by asking how people are managing financial situations and outcomes,” says Billy Hensley, Ph.D., president and CEO of NEFE. “As we enter 2026, Americans are facing ongoing challenges and reporting some of the highest levels of financial concern we’ve seen in quite some time.”

 

NEFE, in conjunction with Verasight, polled U.S. adults on their overall financial well-being at the end of 2025 and their expectations for 2026. The questions asked are based on similar questions NEFE has polled in previous years across different economic, social and political landscapes. Highlights from the latest poll results include:

• The most chosen financial New Year’s resolutions for 2026 are “paying down any type of debt” (42%), “setting and following a budget” (39%) and “checking and improving credit score” (36%).

• The largest anticipated expenses in 2026, excluding mortgage and rent, are “paying down debt” (40%), “home-related expenses” (36%) and “transportation expenses” (32%).

• The major expenses or unexpected financial setbacks faced by households in 2025 include “unexpected transportation expenses” (25%), “unexpected home repairs or maintenance” (24%), “falling behind on bill payments/debt obligations” (22%), “medical expenses due to injury or illness” (21%) and “job loss or significant reduction in income” (20%).

• When asked about their confidence in handling an unexpected $2,000 expense, 36% are “certain they could,” 19% “probably could,” 13% “probably could not” and 26% are “certain they could not.”

• If faced with an unexpected expense, most respondents would use some combination of “credit cards” (35%), “emergency savings” (25%) or “cash” (24%), followed by “borrowing money from family or friends” (20%), “selling something they own” (18%) and “using a ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ offer to free up funds” (17%).

• Respondents were most likely to view the quality of their current financial life as “about what they expected” (41%), followed by “worse than they expected” (38%) and then “better than they expected” (16%).

• Respondents said the frequency they had a month-end surplus of money is “every month” (20%), “most months” (19%), “only some months” (22%), "rarely” (24%) and “never” (14%).

 

Additional questions related to financial well-being, as well as a breakdown of responses based on age, gender, socioeconomic status and other segmentations are available here.

 

“While these findings are startling, there is growing momentum to address these challenges through youth financial education graduation requirements,” Hensley continues. “Many of the issues highlighted in this poll are already among the core topics states are considering for their curricula. Financial topics and the choices surrounding them shouldn’t be a mystery. By normalizing conversations about money and strengthening young people’s confidence, we increase the likelihood that they can align their financial lives with their personal values and decisions. Although financial education is only part of the solution, it is proven to increase knowledge, build confidence and support informed decision making.”

 

Four state legislatures—Kentucky, Colorado, Texas and Delaware—passed financial education graduation requirement bills in 2025, bringing the total number of states that either require, or are in the process of implementing, at least a semester-long course for graduation to 30. While not a standalone course requirement, the Hawaii Department of Education has moved to formalize a policy, bringing the total number of states with a full or partial financial education graduation requirement to 38.

 

For more on this poll, visit the NEFE website.

 

Verasight Methodology

Verasight collected data for this survey from December 18-23, 2025. The sample consists of 1,200 U.S. adults (aged 18+) and passing all data quality assurance checks. The data are weighted to match the September 2025 Current Population Survey on age, race/ethnicity, sex, income, education, region and metropolitan status, as well as to a running three-year average of partisanship distributions from the Pew Research Center NPORS benchmarking surveys and population benchmarks of 2024 vote. The margin of sampling error, which accounts for the design effect and is calculated using the classical random sampling formula, is +/- 2.9%. To ensure data quality, a number of post-data collection quality assurance procedures are implemented, including confirming that all responses correspond with U.S. IP addresses, confirming no duplicate respondents, verifying the absence of non-human responses and removing any respondents who failed in-survey attention, speeding and/or straight-lining checks. Respondents who completed the survey in less than 30% of the median completion time were also removed. Unmeasured error in this or any other survey may exist. Numbers in tables that do not add to 100% are due to rounding.

 

About NEFE

The National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) is the independent, centralizing voice providing leadership, research and collaboration to champion effective financial education and advance financial well-being. NEFE has received national recognition for strengthening action-oriented research agendas, mobilizing intermediaries, and creating better solutions for researchers, educators, practitioners and policymakers. For more information, visit www.nefe.org.