March 17, 2026 / 3:31 PM EDT / CBS News
Roughly half of Americans fall short of the annual income needed to cover their basic needs, according to new research. A U.S. family with children needs about $145,000 in income to be considered economically secure, the Urban Institute reported March 16. About 49% of Americans live below that financial threshold, the nonpartisan think tank found.
In 2024, the median household income for married couples in the U.S. was $128,700, U.S. Census data show.
Ingredients for economic security
Urban’s analysis defines economic security as having enough money to pay for: adequate food; clothing; housing; health care; child care; transportation; postsecondary education; student loan repayments; savings for emergencies and retirement; and additional costs such as personal care products.
The research comes as many Americans continue to feel the pinch of rising prices, with even some six-figure households saying they struggle to pay for basics like utilities and health care.
Riding the “hamster wheel”
While Urban’s measure differs from the poverty rate, which measures extreme hardship, it signals that people with good-paying jobs may still not be earning enough to feel they are thriving. “They might not be destitute, but some of them are skipping bills — and some of them are making their bills on a regular basis, but they’re not getting ahead,” economist Gregory Acs, vice president of Urban’s tax and income supports division and a co-author of the report, told CBS News. “They feel like they’re on the hamster wheel economy.”
Earning above the $145,000 threshold allows people to get ahead and feel financially secure, the analysis said. “If you have more people feeling that their efforts are rewarded, that they have a stronger sense of autonomy, they are able to devote more time to their own communities, to their own families,” Acs said. “Parents can invest more in their kids — time, energy, money.”
The real poverty line?
The analysis echoes a viral 2025 Substack post by Wall Street strategist Michael Green that argued the actual poverty line in the U.S. — how much you must earn to afford necessities like food and shelter — is much higher than the government’s official number, which stands at about $33,000 for a family of four. By Green’s calculation, Americans who earn less than $140,000 should be considered poor because their income isn’t sufficient to pay for basics — a conclusion similar to Urban’s approach. “He called it a poverty rate — I think it actually was more of an economic security rate,” Acs said. “His intuition, in his back-of-the-envelope calculation, is broadly consistent with the way we added things up.”
The same share of Americans likely remained below the economic security threshold in 2026, Acs noted, because wages and inflation have risen roughly in tandem in recent years. Still, some households may face more acute stress this year, such as those who lost enhanced premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act plans when they expired in January.
Who struggles most
Rates of economic insecurity vary by race, age and family composition. Single-parent households have among the lowest rates of economic security, with about 90% below Urban’s proposed threshold. About 8 in 10 U.S. renters fall below the economic security line — roughly double the rate of homeowners — and about 45% of families with one member over 65 lack economic security.
Under-65 households without children need about $95,900 in annual earnings to meet basic needs, less than families with kids largely because they don’t face child care costs. Families with at least one adult over 65 require $108,500 for economic security, reflecting higher health-care costs despite the absence of child care expenses.
Edited by Alain Sherter