Americans are struggling to afford essentials like food, child care, housing, and energy. And many don’t expect their situation to improve.
Policymakers and community leaders need clear, timely data to understand how rising costs affect people in their communities and where pressures are most acute. This tracker brings together the latest available data on earnings, household costs, and financial strain to provide a clear picture of affordability across the country.
It monitors trends in housing, health care, child care, energy, gas, and other essential expenses, alongside earnings and indicators of financial distress. A companion brief outlines policy solutions for local, state, and federal policymakers to create an affordable future for the people in their communities.
Key Takeaways
- Nearly half of people in American families cannot afford the true cost of living. Urban research finds 49 percent of people in American families don’t have the resources to cover essential expenses to live securely in their community.
- The cost of essential goods and services is rising faster than earnings. Since 2017, average earnings have grown about 43 percent nationwide. Over the same period, home sale prices have increased 81 percent and rents 54 percent. The lowest-cost Silver health plan on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace has risen 77 percent, and child care costs have grown dramatically.
- Rising everyday expenses, including energy and transportation, are adding new pressures on households. Residential electricity costs have increased faster than earnings across much of the country, leaving customers paying about $40 more in December 2025 on average than they did in December 2017. Gas prices have also risen sharply, with the national average growing by $1.00 per gallon since late February 2026.
- Affordability pressures are spreading beyond traditionally high-cost areas.
Many previously low-cost regions, including parts of Atlanta, Chicago, Louisville, Winston-Salem, Columbus, Nashville, western New York, south-central Wisconsin, and central Florida, are seeing costs for housing, health care, and groceries rise faster than in other areas.
In the charts below, explore these trends and more using data over time at the national, state, and congressional district levels.
About the Data
This data tool was first published in October 2025 and will be updated as new data are available. The tool contains information derived from multiple data sources. Throughout this tracker, we display rounded data values, but we calculate percent change over time based on the underlying data values. For more information on our sources and methodology, please see our technical appendix.
By default, all dollar amounts shown are nominal; toggling to real dollars shows amounts converted using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. Frequency varies by data source: Some data sources are updated quarterly or monthly whereas others are only available annually. Where available, we display data by congressional district using the boundaries as of the start of 119th Congress for all years. For example, we report the 2020 credit card delinquency rate for Maryland’s Third District based on the 119th Congress boundaries—even if some residents were in different districts at that time. Data for some congressional districts may not be available.
Please contact [email protected] for more information about this tool.
Project Credits
This data tool was funded by the Urban Institute. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of our experts. Further information on the Urban Institute’s funding principles is available at urban.org/fundingprinciples.
We are grateful for the data contributions from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study (supported by the Conagra Brands Foundation), which uses food price data contributed by NielsenIQ to estimate county-level meal costs. We also thank Poonam Gupta, J. P. Walsh, Michael Karpman, Lisa Dubay, Jessica Banthin, Noah Anderson, and Oriya Cohen for their input on data variables, and we thank Mary Cunningham and Thea Garon for their helpful counsel.
Project Conceptualization and Leadership Signe-Mary McKernan, Catherine Harvey, and Gregory Acs
Research Nikhita Airi, Breno Braga, William J. Congdon, and Renee Wu
Data Visualization and Development Mitchell Thorson
Editing Alexandra Tammaro and Lauren Lastowka
Writing Wesley Jenkins
Web Production Lydia Nguyen and Samantha Cressman
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