50% of U.S. Households Can't Afford Basic Necessities: What the 2024 Brookings Data Really Shows

# 50% of U.S. Households Can't Afford Basic Necessities: What the 2024 Brookings Data Really Shows

> **Quick answer:** A Brookings Institution report published in May 2026 found that 45.5% of U.S. households — roughly half — did not earn enough to cover basic necessities in 2024. The six necessities measured are housing, food, healthcare, childcare, transportation, and utilities. More than 40% of households have failed this threshold in almost every year since 2014. A $10/hour wage increase would lift 38 million households above the line.

Nearly half of American households cannot afford the basics — and that figure has barely moved in a decade. The 50 percent US households can't afford necessities headline is alarming, but the underlying data from Brookings reveals something even more troubling: this is not a temporary shock. It is a structural condition baked into the wage-versus-cost architecture of the American economy.

## The Brookings Report: What the 2024 Data Actually Found

The Brookings Institution's "States of Affordability" report, published May 28, 2026 and authored by Hannah Stephens, Mayu Takeuchi, Glencora Haskins, Andre M. Perry, and Joseph Parilla, measured whether household post-tax income was sufficient to cover a county-level cost-of-living estimate across six categories: housing, food, childcare, healthcare, transportation, and utilities.

The headline number: **45.5% of U.S. households could not make ends meet in 2024.**