{"id":728452,"date":"2026-06-27T03:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/728452\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T03:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:29:14","slug":"who-buys-groceries-on-bnpl-10-unsettling-consumer-truths-from-the-latest-u-s-economic-well-being-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/728452\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Buys Groceries on BNPL? 10 Unsettling Consumer Truths From the Latest U.S. Economic Well-Being Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Federal Reserve\u2019s Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025<\/a>, published in May 2026, polled nearly 13,000 adults in October 2025. Seventy-three percent of adults said they were doing okay or living comfortably, holding steady for the fourth year running.<\/p>\n

Many households could not say that. Here are the sobering highlights.<\/p>\n

1. Half of young adults live with a parent<\/p>\n

Nearly half of adults under 30, 49%, lived with a parent in 2025. That is up 6 percentage points since 2022 and 12 points since 2019. A weak entry-level job market is doing the pushing: 15% of young adults were not working specifically because they could not find a job, three times the rate for everyone 30 and older.<\/p>\n

2. Black households lost ground in a flat year<\/p>\n

The share of Black adults doing okay or living comfortably fell 5 percentage points in a single year, to 60%. Layoffs among Black adults rose to 13%, and the share whose finances were hurt by rising prices climbed.<\/p>\n

3. Consumers lost $56 billion in fraud losses<\/p>\n

One in five adults reported financial fraud or a scam. Setting aside credit card fraud, which banks usually cover, the Fed estimates consumers ate $56 billion in net losses on their own in 2025.<\/p>\n

The median hit for households earning under $50,000 was $400 \u2014 a devastating blow when you consider that four in 10 of those same households said they couldn\u2019t even cover a minor $100 emergency expense with their savings.<\/p>\n

4. People are buying groceries on installment plans<\/p>\n

Buy Now, Pay Later use rose to 16% of adults. One in five users reached for it to cover groceries or food delivery, and among those, 45% said it was the only way they could afford the purchase. Splitting a clothing order into four payments is one thing. Doing it for dinner is another.<\/p>\n

5. BNPL users think it builds credit. It does not<\/p>\n

A majority of Buy Now, Pay Later users, 53%, wrongly believed that on-time payments would help their credit score. At the time of the survey, those payments did not appear on any of the three major credit bureaus. Only 14% of users answered basic questions about the product\u2019s credit effects correctly.<\/p>\n

6. Card debt most impacts people already struggling<\/p>\n

The Fed matched survey answers to actual credit records. Among people finding it difficult to get by, average balances jumped more than 37% over two years, an increase of more than $2,500. For those living comfortably, balances barely moved, up $59. The debt is concentrated exactly where the cushion is thinnest.<\/p>\n

7. Homeowners reduce insurance coverage they cannot afford<\/p>\n

Six percent of homeowners went without insurance entirely, and most blamed cost: 43% said they could not afford it. The gaps run by geography, with 11% uninsured across the West-South Central and East-South Central divisions.<\/p>\n

Among those who kept coverage, more than six in 10 said premiums had risen faster than they expected.<\/p>\n

Taking 10 minutes today to shave hundreds of dollars off your home insurance<\/a> is one of the easiest ways to cut costs without cutting coverage.<\/p>\n

8. Renters are falling behind on rent<\/p>\n

Twenty-three percent of renters had been behind on rent at some point in the past year, up 6 points from 2021. The strain falls on lower earners: A third of renters making under $50,000 fell behind, compared with 5% of those earning $100,000 or more.<\/p>\n

9. Millions still cannot cover a $400 surprise<\/p>\n

Twelve percent of adults said they could not cover a $400 emergency expense by any means. The share who could handle it with cash has been stuck at 63% for four years, down from a 2021 peak of 68%. The financial fragility the Fed has tracked for a decade has not improved.<\/p>\n

Build an emergency fund while you\u2019re watching TV. Lots of companies let you earn money for testing apps, playing games and taking surveys, but FreeCash<\/a> is in a league of its own. Take a moment to check it out.<\/p>\n

10. Only a third of non-retirees feel on track for retirement<\/p>\n

Just 35% of non-retirees said their retirement savings were on track, down from 40% in 2021 and flat over the past year. The gap between having an account and feeling prepared is wide: Most non-retirees held a 401(k), an IRA, or a pension, yet two-thirds did not consider themselves on track.<\/p>\n

What does this mean for you?<\/p>\n

A national survey says nothing about your household or individual circumstances. But a few of these findings make for a useful personal audit: whether a $400 surprise would be a problem, whether a card balance is rolling from month to month, and whether the retirement account you have actually puts you on track.<\/p>\n

Are you in the 73% doing okay, or do some of these financial pressures hit a little too close to home?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Federal Reserve\u2019s Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025, published in May 2026, polled nearly 13,000 adults…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-728452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}