MILTON FRIEDMAN ISN’T RUNNING THE SHOW ANYMORE: With Inflation, Even Workers Earning Six Figures Feel the Sting.

Financial fragility has been widespread among workers as inflation and prices remain high.

And while the pain is being felt primarily among low-income workers, there’s a surprising group of employees who are also feeling the squeeze: those earning six figures.

Several recent studies indicate that not only is financial stress on the rise among all workers, but high-income employees are feeling less confident about their financial situations than they were a year ago, when inflation hit a four-decade high.

Households earning more than $100,000 per year saw the biggest drop in financial well-being compared with a year ago, according to a poll by Morning Consult released last month. While scores dropped from 2022 to 2023 among all U.S. adults polled, the scores among those making six figures dropped 2.45 percentage points to 57.07 from 59.52 a year earlier. Comparatively, year-over-year financial well-being scores for those making between $50,000 and $99,000 dipped 0.59 points, from 51.90 in 2022 to 51.31 in 2023, while scores for those making under $50,000 dropped 0.86 points, from 46.24 in 2022 to 45.38 in 2023.

Meanwhile, just over half of high-income workers—those making $100,000 or more—said they are living paycheck to paycheck, a jump from 42 percent a year ago, a report out earlier this year from LendingClub found. Another report from financial wellness firms Salary Finance and FinFit found that  workers at all income levels are feeling financial stress—nearly 60 percent of those making under $55,000 feel financial stress, but roughly 40 percent of those making over $200,000 feel it, too.

“Higher-income earners are feeling the pressure,” said Deepa Chatterjee, chief operating officer of Dayforce Consumer Services at Ceridian, a Minneapolis-based human resource software firm.

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