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As many Americans struggle to keep up with the rising cost of living (housing, groceries, electricity, and other necessities), their financial stress is getting more attention in the workplace.
In 2025, employers’ discomfort with their workers’ financial well-being reached a new high: 48% rated their concern at 9 or 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, compared to 43% in 2024 and just 39% in 2023, according to a recent study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. As recently as 2019, the year before Covid, this share stood at 22%.
Since 2022, “we’ve seen employers move away from retirement as a primary area of concern and more toward day-to-day cost of living issues, as well as budgeting and saving issues,” said Jake Spiegel, senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
“Employees are feeling the effects of above-trend inflation,” Spiegel said.
Paycheck to paycheck
Although inflation has returned to an annual rate of 2.7% since its peak of 9.1% in June 2022, prices have increased by more than 25% overall since 2020, based on the Consumer Price Index.
The result was that a large proportion of households saw their budgets reduced due to higher costs. More than half (57%) of employees live paycheck to paycheck, according to a 2025 survey of nearly 90,000 participants in Bank of America’s 401(k) retirement plans. While wage growth has generally outpaced inflation over the past two years, this came after a period where incomes lagged behind inflation in 2021 and 2022.
Employers, who want to help their employees manage stress to reduce absenteeism or worker dissatisfaction, are focusing more on the financial well-being of their employees.
More than two-thirds (70%) of employers have committed to some sort of financial wellness initiative in 2025, up from 59% the year before, according to the EBRI study. The study included responses from 406 benefits decision-makers at companies with at least 500 employees who offer or are interested in financial wellness programs.
At the same time, a smaller proportion of employers say their efforts have a “significant impact”: 43%, compared to 60% in 2024 and 73% in 2023.
Employers can take inspiration from their employees when evaluating the impact of their programs, he said.
“We find in one of our other surveys … that employees tend to be less rosy than employers when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of employee benefits,” he said.
Concept of financial well-being
The specifics of any financial wellness program differ from company to company. They could include, for example, benefits such as payday advance loans, short-term third-party loans, and access to emergency funds through dedicated savings accounts or their 401(k) – either through a loan or hardship withdrawal.
Other times, it might be offering seminars or webinars focused on specific issues like creating a budget, investing, or saving for retirement.
Additionally, 68% reported that their workers have access to financial advisors and 46% provide access to financial coaches. Sometimes the company fully or partially subsidizes the cost of one-on-one meetings with experts.
“Financial wellness (programs) with one-on-one sessions are a strategic way to provide greater access” to professionals who specialize in providing financial advice, said certified financial planner Uchechi Kalu, founder of Greenlight Financial Planning in Los Angeles.
Kalu works with a nonprofit in Chicago whose employees can meet with her twice a year, via video calls, to discuss financial issues they are facing. With the employer subsidizing half the cost, workers pay $118 per session, Kalu said. She said when employers help fund these types of sessions, it can make a difference in whether workers take advantage of these benefits.
She has provided advice on a variety of financial matters, including budgeting, investing, buying a home, and ways to travel abroad.
“One-on-one meetings make it possible to reach people in critical moments and help them along their journey,” Kalu said.
