Experts say the financial stress employees feel is real and is especially acute for lower-wage workers. Recent statistics include:

The Federal Reserve Bank's latest Report on the Economic Wellbeing of U.S. Households found that, while economic wellbeing has generally improved over the past five years, 40 percent of U.S. households still say they cannot cover a $400 emergency expense.
About 78 percent of U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck, including one in 10 workers earning at least $100,000 per year, according to a 2017 CareerBuilder survey.
As of December 2018, total U.S. consumer debt is $13.46 trillion, up nearly 4 percent from a year previously. Non-mortgage debt is nearly $4 trillion, or about 30 percent of total U.S. consumer debt, up 46.4 percent from 10 years ago, according to an Equifax analysis. Total write-offs of non-mortgage debt, including auto loans and leases, student loans and credit-card balances for 2018 through October, was nearly $84 billion, up 11 percent from a year before.Student-loan write-offs cover 32 percent of the rise.
Americans are relying on credit cards like never before: Nearly 60 percent of Americans have a credit card. The typical American has 2.5 cards and carries an average balance of $4,293, according to Experian. And, interest rates are rising, meaning payments on that debt dig even deeper into employees' pocketbooks.

Healthcare is taking a bigger bite from barely growing wages: Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $19,616 in 2018, up 5 percent, with workers paying an average of $5,547 toward the cost of coverage. The average deductible was $1,573 for single coverage.

Thirty-nine percent of large employers offer only high-deductible healthcare plans, up from 7 percent in 2009, according to a survey by the National Business Group on Health. Half of all workers have health-insurance deductibles of at least $1,000 for an individual, up from 22 percent in 2009, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Financial stress can have a profound effect on how employees do their job. And the cost of this stress to American business is $250 billion lost annually, according to Mercer's Inside Employee Minds Financial Wellness Survey, as employees spend an average of 12 work hours per month worrying about their money.

Instant Insights /

How to Help Ease the Cycle of Poverty for Low-Wage Workers

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