Multiple recent polls have found that economic anxiety in the U.S. is on the rise, and decades of KFF polling show how the rising cost of health care is a key component of people’s economic concerns. New data from the KFF Health Tracking Poll provide additional insights into who is struggling most in the current economy and how the cost of health care factors into those struggles:

• Younger adults, LGBT adults, Hispanic adults, and those with more modest incomes are some of the groups most likely to report problems earning a living and affording health care and other necessities.
• Large shares of those who are uninsured or purchase their own insurance also report challenges earning a living and paying for care.
• About one in five of those with incomes of $90,000 or more say their household had problems affording health care (19%) or prescription drugs (18%) in the past year.

This KFF Health Tracking Poll was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at KFF. The survey was conducted October 27-November 2, 2025, online and by telephone among a nationally representative sample of 1,350 U.S. adults in English (n=1,274) and in Spanish (n=76). The sample includes 1,031 adults (n=63 in Spanish) reached through the SSRS Opinion Panel either online (n=1,007) or over the phone (n=24).

The SSRS Opinion Panel is a nationally representative probability-based panel where panel members are recruited randomly in one of two ways: (a) Through invitations mailed to respondents randomly sampled from an Address-Based Sample (ABS) provided by Marketing Systems Groups (MSG) through the U.S. Postal Service’s Computerized Delivery Sequence (CDS); (b) from a dual-frame random digit dial (RDD) sample provided by MSG. For the online panel component, invitations were sent to panel members by email followed by up to three reminder emails.