Operation HOPE’s First Quarter 2025 Research Shows Increased Unease About the Stability of the U.S. Economy

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Operation HOPE, a national nonprofit dedicated to helping low- and moderate-income Americans thrive in an ever-changing economy, today announced the first quarter 2025 results of The HOPE Insider, its comprehensive nationwide client survey. The quarter’s new findings revealed that while a strong majority of respondents are feeling uneasy about the state of the economy and their personal finances, they remain optimistic about their ability to improve their personal financial situations in the year ahead.

Key First Quarter 2025 Survey Findings:

1. Rising cost of living plays a major role in low confidence in the economy

85% of respondents reported feeling anxious about their personal finances since the beginning of the year, and three out of four are not confident that the U.S. economy will remain stable in 2025. Respondents report that a large portion of this unease comes from the high cost of living across the country:

• 81% of those working say they feel like their income is not keeping up with the rising cost of living
• Basic necessities have become more difficult to afford in the past three months:
  • 60% say food and groceries have grown harder to pay for
  • 51% report greater difficulty covering housing expenses, including rent or mortgage
  • 43% are finding transportation costs – gas, car payments, or public transit – increasingly burdensome

2. Paycheck-to-paycheck living remains high

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of respondents say they consider themselves or their families to be living “paycheck-to-paycheck,” meaning they are not able to save money. Feeling like they can’t get ahead of their bills, almost half (48%) say it is a “bad time” to buy major household items.

Nearly half of respondents (48%) say their personal debt levels have increased over the last three months. Of that debt, credit cards have continued last year’s trend as the most financially burdensome at 36%. Behind credit cards, the most stressful types of debt are student loans (16%), auto loans (12%), and mortgages (10%).

3. Rising debt levels—intertwined with the cost of living—may be trending upward

Although the cost of everyday goods is still the largest factor of impact and worry for survey respondents, the percentage of those who say it was the top factor this quarter was 40%—a six percent decrease from last quarter. Some of that share went to rising debt levels, at 24%, up from 20% last quarter.

4. Job situations remain stable, but satisfaction continues to decrease

Of those in the workforce:

• 69% of respondents say their job situation has remained stable since the beginning of the year
• 13% have been unemployed and actively looking for work
• 5% started a new job in the last three months
• 3% were laid off or furloughed

Last year, there was a 10% drop in the number of respondents who are satisfied with their current employment, falling from 72% to 62%. That downward trend has continued this quarter, with just 53% reporting they are either “somewhat” or “very” satisfied with their jobs. This decline comes against a backdrop of respondents also reporting that their income is not keeping up with the rising cost of living.

5. Hope remains strong as participants focus on managing their finances

Respondents remain most hopeful for the situations they can control: 80% say they are hopeful that their financial wellbeing will increase over the next year and 81% are hopeful their work/career will improve. Optimism about external factors—housing prices and the economic conditions for small business growth in their community—are lower but still significant, at 66% and 64%, respectively.

Operation HOPE Client Impact:

The high percentage of respondents reporting that they felt optimistic about their personal financial future despite current challenges and concerns about the broader economy demonstrates the value of the financial wellness coaching and support they receive from Operation HOPE. This optimism is reflected in HOPE’s latest impact report for the first quarter of 2025, which shows that through Operation HOPE’s services, clients have experienced:

• An average increase of 39 points in credit scores (of those who saw improvement)
• A median decrease in debt of $1,893
• A median increase in savings of more than $1,100

About The Hope Insider

The HOPE Insider survey has been conducted quarterly by Operation HOPE’s research team since November 2023. The survey is sent to Operation HOPE’s client base of adults, small business owners, and entrepreneurs who have sought the organization’s financial wellness services. The first quarter 2025 survey collected nearly 2,000 responses on topics including housing, debt, small business ownership, work and general economic optimism. The survey features a diverse representative set with respondents from all adult age ranges, ethnicities, genders, and household incomes across the U.S. The survey tracks overall trends, with additional questions to reflect timely issues. Its goal is to gather a broad-based understanding of the sentiment of Operation HOPE clients on a regular basis to better support their needs and to serve as an indicator of the real-time financial and economic concerns of the American public.

About Operation HOPE, Inc.
Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to "silver rights" with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved—disrupting poverty for millions of low and moderate-income youth and adults across the nation. Through its community uplift model, HOPE Inside, which received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million individuals and directed more than $3.2 billion in economic activity into disenfranchised communities—turning check-cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and uncertain disaster victims into financially empowered disaster survivors. For more information: OperationHOPE.org. Follow the HOPE conversation on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.