By Charlene Crowell
As the nation’s affordability crisis continues, a growing body of new research finds that rising gas and grocery costs are but two of many factors causing consumers’ financial stress. Moreover, today’s financial stress is deemed a function of both old and newer consumer concerns.
Research from the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality exposes how 70 percent of all Americans struggle with multiple affordability issues like housing, food, health care, and childcare, according to its Family Economic Well-Being Index. Nationally, 41 percent of Americans face a health care burden, 33 percent face a housing burden, and nearly one-third face a food burden.
“While families in poverty face the greatest difficulty affording the basics, this struggle reaches well into the middle class,” said Lelaine Bigelow, the organization’s executive director. “Millions of people are working hard and still can’t get ahead of these costs. The data make clear that affordability isn’t a narrow problem that can be solved with narrow policies. The scale of the response must match the scale of the challenge.”
A longer-term view from the Brookings Institution finds the origin of America’s affordability challenges festered for more than a decade, beginning in 2014.
“Over the 2014-to-2024 period, the shares of Black and Latino or Hispanic households making ends meet were the lowest of any demographic group,” according to its policy brief, States of Affordability: Where and why US households struggle to make ends meet:
“This trend mirrors the income and wage gaps that continue to persist by race and ethnicity… When the costs for housing, health care, education, and food rise faster than wages, families fall behind not because they are failing, but because the math no longer works in their favor.”
These findings are substantiated by updated median household income statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. Although 2025’s median household income of $87,460 was the highest on record dating back to 1967, nagging and historic income disparities by race and gender remain largely unchanged.
Last year, non-Hispanic whites had a median income of $75,030, lower than that of Asian Americans who topped this earning category at $90,430. At the same time, Black median income was $55,100, and Hispanics even lower at $51,500. Similarly, by gender, 2025 female median income of $60,760 remained lower than that of men at $72,380.
In other words, for every dollar in 2025 earned by white, non-Hispanic men working full time, year-round, Black women were paid just 64 cents, Hispanic women 60 cents, white women 81 cents, and Asian women 99 cents, as analyzed by the Center for American Progress.
The stark jump in childcare costs – even when regional variances are considered – illustrate how hard these gender and racial statistics hit families.
Just as housing is defined ‘affordable’ when it costs no more than 30 percent of income, similarly childcare costs are generally considered affordable when they cost no more than seven percent of income. Last year, the $13,184 national average annual price of childcare cost 33 percent of single parent households’ income, according to Child Care Aware of America’s 2025 National Trends report published this May.
Nor was this disproportionate cost of care limited to one year. This same report found that childcare costs rose:
• 23 percent from 2021 to 2025;
• In 47 states, two children (an infant and a 4-year–old) in a center are more expensive than median annual rent payments;
• In 39 states, two children in a center are more expensive than median annual mortgage payments; and
• In 38 states, infant care is more expensive than in- state, public college tuition.
“Families struggle to find and afford childcare, the childcare workforce is woefully underpaid, childcare programs operate on razor thin margins, and businesses are suffering lost productivity and workforce turnover due to childcare issues,” states the report. “Children, families, and communities across America remain on an uneven playing field when it comes to state childcare and preschool funding.”
This June Julie Margetta Morgan, President of The Century Foundation, testified at a hearing convened by the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Succinctly summarizing the affordability crisis, she challenged lawmakers to enact meaningful reforms for consumers and businesses alike:
“Policymakers are focused on the cost of a gallon of gas today, but millions of Americans are still paying off last week’s tank of gas, plus more than 20 percent interest on those fuel costs…Given the role that financial institutions are playing in compounding families’ affordability woes, there is plenty that this Committee, and banking regulators could be doing to dramatically reduce families’ financial burdens.”
