Most Americans say they and their families are financially worse off today than four years ago. Economic data paint a mixed picture on whether it’s easier or harder to get by than it was back then.
Gallup recently released the results of a poll conducted in September, in which they asked U.S. adults, “Would you say you and your family are better off now than you were four years ago, or are you worse off now?” Only 39% said they were better off, while 52% said they were worse off. It was the most pessimistic result ever during a presidential election year for that question, which Gallup has asked regularly since 1984.1
Gallup. “Majority of Americans Feel Worse Off Than Four Years Ago.”
The question is designed to gauge public opinion about how household finances have fared during presidential administrations and signal how likely they might be to vote for an incumbent candidate or party. But this year, the question is especially loaded since “four years ago” was the fall of 2020, a dark time for the country and an extremely weird phase of the economy.
In the fall of 2020, the U.S. was reeling from the onslaught of COVID-19. No vaccine was widely available to the public, and thousands of people were dying from the virus each week.2 Public health authorities were imposing restrictions on gatherings, and requiring masks in many public places. Many businesses had still not reopened, and shoppers sometimes found empty shelves when looking for common household supplies.
Here’s how key measures of Americans’ financial health and the overall economy have changed over the four years since.
In September 2020, the economy had recovered many of the more than 20 million jobs lost when the pandemic shutdown businesses, but still hadn’t dug itself out of the hole. The unemployment rate stood at 7.8%, nearly double its September 2024 rate of 4.1%.
The resilient job market is one of the economy’s biggest bright spots despite a recent slowdown. It has defied the expectations of economists, many of whom expected a recession in 2023 because of the Federal Reserve’s rate hike campaign to stifle inflation.
The standard of living is ruled by the constant tug-of-war between income and inflation. The surge of inflation that took hold as the economy reopened from the pandemic had a seismic impact on many households’ finances. Since then, price increases have slowed considerably while wages have continued rising steadily.
In September 2020, that storm of inflation was still in the future. Between September 2020 and 2024, consumer prices rose 21.1%, according to the Consumer Price Index, while average hourly pay rose 19.8%, leaving workers worse off on average.
The pandemic spurred a surge in home prices as buyers scrambled for more space for the new work-from-home lifestyle. As the pandemic faded, mortgage rates rose as the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate to combat inflation. High prices and interest rates have pushed monthly mortgage payments high enough that far fewer people can afford a home.
The median monthly payment on a newly bought house, including taxes and insurance, was $2,997, or 42% of the median monthly income in August, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. In September 2020, it was $1,656, or 29% of income. Home payments are generally considered “affordable” if they’re less than 30% of income.3
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. “Home Ownership Affordability Monitor.”
In September 2020, unemployed workers could rely on an unprecedented social safety net that has mostly evaporated.
Early on in the pandemic, a federal program boosted state unemployment benefits by $600 a week, which was later reduced to $300 before going away in 2021.
Food stamp benefits were raised, and free lunches were made available to all school students in the country. The extra SNAP benefits ended in 2023, and the free school lunches ended in 2022, although several states have made free school lunches permanent.4
Food and Nutrition Service. “SNAP Benefits – COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond.”
The federal government banned evictions from apartments, and homeowners could stop paying their mortgages without incurring any penalties. The eviction ban expired in 2021 after the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional.5 Enrollment for pandemic mortgage forbearance ended in 2023 when the COVID national emergency officially ended.
In addition to that relief, the government had sent out checks directly to households of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child.
Medicaid, the government’s health insurance program for people with low incomes, stopped disenrolling ineligible beneficiaries, leading to a sharp decrease in the number of Americans going without health insurance. That began to reverse in 2023 when disenrollment resumed.
Payments on federal student loans were paused, taking a major expense off the monthly budgets for many of the nation’s 43 million borrowers. Payments resumed in 2023, a financial shock to some of those borrowers.
Overall, researchers credit the pandemic-era social safety net programs—especially the child tax credit expansion, which didn’t take effect until 2021—with reducing child poverty and helping the economy recover far faster than it would have otherwise.6
Ironically, the economy’s distress in 2020 improved the bottom line of many households. Business closures meant there were fewer opportunities to spend money, and cash was still coming in, partly because of government relief programs. That caused the saving rate—how much after-tax income is left over after spending—to surge.
Since then, the saving rate has fallen as the economy has returned to normal. The same trend can be seen in the nation’s overall credit card debt, which plunged in 2020 and resumed its usual steady uptick in 2021.
The stock market has boomed over the last four years, with the popular S&P 500 stock index up about 70% between September 2020 and September 2024. The surge in stock value has helped boost household wealth, though it mostly affects the richer households who own the majority of stocks, according to data from the Federal Reserve.7
How have all these crosscurrents affected household finances? There are signs that people have weathered the storm and some that stress is building. For example, more people are falling behind on credit card payments, suggesting more people are under pressure.8
However, there’s no sign that people are cutting back on spending. U.S. consumers continue to spend freely on restaurants and other retailers.
Then there’s also a long-running trend of people being generally pessimistic about their own finances and the economy as a whole, regardless of what the data might say. People’s feelings about the economy can be partisan, viewing it as better when their preferred party is in power, and those feelings can run hot during a presidential election year.