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As many Americans struggle to keep up with the rising cost of living<\/a> \u2014 housing, groceries, electricity<\/a> and other necessities \u2014 their financial stress is getting more attention in the workplace.<\/p>\n In 2025, employer discomfort <\/a>at their workers\u2019 financial wellbeing<\/a> reached a new high: 48% rated their concern at 9 or 10 on a scale of 1-to-10, compared with 43% in 2024 and only 39% in 2023, according to recent research from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. As recently as 2019, the year before Covid, that share stood at 22%. <\/p>\n Since 2022, \u201cwe\u2019ve seen employers shift away from retirement<\/a> as the top area of concern toward more of the day-to-day cost of living issues, and budgeting and savings issues,\u201d said Jake Spiegel, a senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEmployees are feeling the squeeze from above-trend inflation,\u201d Spiegel said.<\/p>\n Although inflation has eased to a yearly rate of 2.7%<\/a> since peaking at 9.1% in June 2022, prices overall have climbed more than 25% since 2020, based on the consumer price index<\/a>.<\/p>\n The result has been a large share of households whose budgets are pinched by higher costs. More than half (57%) of employees live paycheck to paycheck, according to a 2025 survey of close to 90,000 participants in 401(k) retirement plans by Bank of America. While wage growth<\/a> has generally outpaced inflation over the past two years, that came after a period when income lagged behind inflation in 2021 and 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n Employers, who are interested in helping employee manage stress in order to reduce absenteeism or worker dissatisfaction, have been doing more to focus on the financial wellbeing of their employees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nPaycheck-to-paycheck<\/h3>\n