The American consumer has more financial tools available to them than ever before. Despite this, the number of Financially Healthy households has remained stagnant for years, while rising economic pressures create new challenges. 

For financial institutions, these trends point to a growing need for products and services that meaningfully improve customers’ financial health. Those solutions start with reliable data. 

For nearly a decade, the Financial Health Pulse® has tracked trends and disparities in U.S. financial health, helping providers, philanthropists, and policymakers shape their interventions and investments. In particular, providers use Pulse data to drive enterprise-wide financial health strategy through segmentation, product roadmaps, service delivery design, marketing, and consumer messaging.

When institutions prioritize financial health, the results don’t just show up in customer outcomes. They also bolster business performance. Customers who believe their primary financial institution supports their financial health are three times more likely to recommend their institution and five times more likely to report interest in purchasing additional products and services. 

These numbers don’t come as a surprise. Most customers are evaluating providers not only based on the products they offer, but what those products enable them to do—shore up their financial health today while preparing them for tomorrow. As households grapple with economic uncertainty, a growing number of institutions are recognizing this link and  embedding financial health into business strategy to deepen consumer trust and loyalty. 

So what does the data tell us right now about consumer financial health? This year’s U.S. Trends Report findings are worrying: The share of Financially Vulnerable households rose from 15% to 17%, reversing last year’s progress. Meanwhile, the share of Financially Healthy households remained virtually unchanged for the fifth consecutive year. 

For financial institutions, these findings point to both urgency and opportunity to invest in the well-being of their customers. Here are four takeaways for providers to watch. 

Because many households participate in Pulse surveys year over year, our data allow us to track how their financial health changes over time. Between 2025 and 2026, 23% of U.S. households—about 30.3 million—moved up or down a financial health tier.

A household that is Financially Healthy today may be navigating a very different reality next year after an emergency expense or drop in income. Another household may be temporarily struggling, but just one nudge away from becoming stable and resilient with the right tools.

What This Means for Providers

Understanding just how dynamic financial health is can help providers identify critical intervention points: What can help consumers on an upward climb maintain their momentum? And where can providers intervene to prevent a temporary setback from becoming a longer-term decline?

In the face of rising costs, fewer households spent less than they earned and on-time bill payment declined. Among low-income households, the share spending less than their income fell from 35% to 31%, while the share paying all bills on time fell from 54% to 49%. While liquid savings balances have so far proved resilient, this may not last long if savings rates remain low. 

What This Means for Providers

Positive cash flow is foundational to nearly every aspect of financial health. For depository institutions especially, those pressures can show up in multiple ways: low savings levels, delinquencies, and reduced uptake of investment accounts or other high-margin products. Although there are many factors that impact cash flow, designing products that support budgeting and saving can help. For example, our FinHealth Standards for Checking Accounts outline features and policies like money labeling and budgeting tools that can help consumers manage spending.

Debt challenges are intensifying, with the share of households reporting unmanageable debt rising to 31%, the highest level in nine years. Among auto loan borrowers, the share reporting unmanageable debt rose from 36% to 40% between 2025 and 2026. 

Student loan borrowers faced even greater challenges. More than half reported unmanageable debt, and the share who were Financially Vulnerable rose sharply over the past year.

What This Means for Providers

As borrowing costs remain high with no signs of slowing, debt challenges can ripple across a consumer’s broader financial life. Households saddled with debt may default on payments or be unable to purchase higher-margin products. 

Our FinHealth Standards for Credit Products offer evidence-based guidance for designing credit cards that help consumers manage spending and repayment, including policies like flexible payment due dates and hardship options.

Insurance confidence continued its yearslong decline. Just 54% of households were at least somewhat confident their insurance would cover them in an emergency, the lowest level recorded since Pulse data collection began in 2018.

What This Means for Providers

Rising premiums, along with growing exposure to environmental and health risks, are widening the gap between the protection households need and how protected they feel.

For providers, the opportunity is twofold: help consumers better understand their existing coverage, while developing solutions that keep that coverage as affordable as possible.

After nine years of measuring financial health in the U.S., one lesson is clear: Fragmented efforts produce fragmented results. Advancing financial health at scale requires a shared understanding of the challenges households are facing, and coordinated action to address them. 

This year’s findings give financial institutions a clearer picture of where those challenges are emerging. Providers can use these insights to grasp how customers’ needs are shifting, identify opportunities to intervene, and design products that support both customer and business outcomes. 

At the Financial Health Network, we’re continuing to build on that intelligence, with Pulse as the anchor of our research. In the coming months, watch for updates that explore how households are faring, what’s driving these outcomes, what it will take to improve, and how we can sustain and scale transformation.