12-05-2025
Low-Income US Families Face Growing Gap Between Earnings, Costs
There's a growing gap between what low-income families earn and what it actually costs to live in the US, according to a new study that says headline measures of inflation fail to capture the burden on these households.
The report by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity compares Americans' incomes to a Minimal Quality of Life Index, a metric that accounts for essential living expenses and other needs for well-being. It found that the bottom 60% of US households — who made about $38,000 on average in 2023 — fell more than $29,000 short of meeting the threshold to afford those goods and services.
