Do you remember how painful the Great Recession was?  2008 and the years immediately following were definitely a very dark chapter in our history, but a new study has actually found that the percentage of Americans that worry they won’t be able to pay their bills is actually higher today than it was back then.  Slowly but surely, our economic strength has been fading and our standard of living has been falling.  Unfortunately, now we have reached a point where a very large portion of the U.S. population is really struggling.  According to a CNN poll that was just released, almost 40 percent of all U.S. adults “say they worry most or all of the time that their family’s income won’t be enough to meet expenses”…

Many Americans regularly worry they won’t be able to make ends meet.

Nearly four in ten (39%) of US adults say they worry most or all of the time that their family’s income won’t be enough to meet expenses, according to a new CNN poll. That’s up from 28% who expressed those concerns in December 2021, and it’s similar to the numbers seen during the Great Recession (37%).

To cope, significant shares of Americans said they are adding side jobs, cutting down on driving and putting more expenses on credit cards.

If you would have asked me before I saw the results, I would have been quite confident that the number during the Great Recession would have been higher than the number in 2024.

Just like everyone else, I remember the Great Recession as such a painful time.

Sadly, the economic pain that we are experiencing now is just beginning.

Ordinary Americans from coast to coast are being absolutely crushed by rising prices, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

In an article that CNN posted about this new survey, one woman that works for the CDC admitted that she was recently forced to move because costs have risen so aggressively…

“The grocery store is just outrageous right now. But it’s not just that. Everything has gone up. Clothing. My insurance,” said Angela Russell, an Ohio resident who works as a program analyst at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Russell, who has two adult children and three grandkids, said she recently moved out of her rental home in Cincinnati in favor of one in a rural area where the rent is cheaper.

Other recent surveys have come up with results that are even more alarming.

For example, one discovered that a whopping 71 percent of Americans are stressed out about their “ability to afford everyday expenses”…

71% of Americans say they’re stressed by their ability to afford everyday expenses.

Americans most regularly spend money on groceries, phone bills, utilities, gasoline and rent/mortgage payments.

Grocery bills frustrate Americans more than any other regular expense. Utilities, rent/mortgage payments, gasoline and insurance payments round out the top five most annoying expenses.

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