The number of Americans earning over $100,000 who are living paycheck to paycheck is climbing as inflation squeezes households, survey shows

• 51% of Americans earning over $100,000 a year are living paycheck to paycheck, a new survey found.
• That's up from 42% of those surveyed by Pymnts.com and Lending Club at the end of 2021.
• American consumers are expecting high inflation to continue over the next two years, the survey found.

More Americans earning over $100,000 are living paycheck to paycheck as inflation outstrips wage growth, a new survey found.

Some 64% of US consumers were living paycheck to paycheck as of December 2022, a survey by Pymnts.com and Lending Club Corp of almost 4,000 US consumers between December 8 and December 23 found.

This is up three percentage points from the same time in 2021, which if extrapolated to the whole US population would mean some 9.3 million more Americans were living month to month in 2022. Roughly eight million of those would be people earning more than $100,000 a year, according to the report.

51% of high-income earners surveyed — those making over $100,000 — said they were living paycheck to paycheck in December. This was an increase of nine percentage points from the previous year.

The same income group also said they were struggling to keep up with monthly bills, up to 16% from 11% the previous year.

However, the report said that high-income consumers were also more optimistic about their financial situation, believing that their economic conditions would improve going forward.

Consumers surveyed said they were expecting high inflation to continue for the next two years with over half predicting higher inflation in 2023, per the report.

A recent decline in the dollar means American consumers might see a further hike in costs this year.

In June 2022, over a third of high-income consumers making over $250,000 were also living paycheck to paycheck.

Still, almost a quarter had no issue paying their bills, according to a previous report by Pymnts.com and Lending Club Corp.