More than half of low-income American households are skipping meals and cutting back on food to keep the lights on, according to a new nationwide survey. The research exposes the brutal trade-offs families face as energy costs continue to climb.
The survey of over 1,000 Americans found that 52% of low-income households sacrificed food or groceries within the past year to pay utility bills. But the compromises don’t stop at the dinner table. One in six low-income families skipped necessary medical care or medication, while others cut transportation, internet service, or even missed rent payments just to avoid a power shutoff.
Researchers at Payless Power, the Texas electricity provider that commissioned the study, described a pattern where families treat electricity like a luxury they have to earn by giving up other essentials.
Financial strain hits households of all sizes, but larger families bear the heaviest burden. Among families with five or more people, 30% fell behind on energy payments in the past year, compared to just 18% of single-person households.
Many families are turning to credit cards to bridge the gap. Nearly 40% of low-income households reported using credit to pay utility bills, a rate that climbs to 50% among Gen Z respondents and 40% among millennials. Baby boomers and Gen X families used credit less frequently, at 35% and 29% respectively.
Falling behind on payments brings swift consequences. Thirty-nine percent of low-income households missed electricity payments within the past year. Nearly one in three received at least one shutoff notice, and 11% actually had their power cut off entirely.
The fear of disconnection looms large. Fifty-nine percent of low-income families worry their electricity could be shut off within the next 30 days. That anxiety far exceeds the rates among middle-income households (41%) and upper-income families (18%).
For families already stretched thin, a single unexpected expense can trigger a cascade of problems. A car repair or medical bill can mean choosing between keeping the power on and buying groceries for the week. The margin for error has essentially disappeared.
Families are making extreme adjustments to cope with energy costs. More than half of low-income households went without heat or air conditioning for several days in the past year because they couldn’t afford to run it.
One in eight low-income families now uses flashlights or phone lights instead of flipping light switches. Nearly one in 10 relies on candles for lighting, and 9% reported showering in the dark to shave dollars off their bills.
These aren’t temporary measures. For many families, these have become regular habits, woven into daily routines. Parents coordinate schedules so everyone showers during daylight hours. Children do homework by candlelight or phone flashlight. Families gather in single rooms to minimize the need for multiple lights.
The lack of climate control creates serious safety risks. Twenty-nine percent of low-income households said they felt physically unsafe at home due to extreme heat or cold. In 24% of struggling families, children or pets had to stay elsewhere because indoor conditions became unbearable.
Sending children to stay with relatives or friends during heat waves or cold snaps has become a survival strategy. Pets get dropped off at neighbors’ homes when indoor temperatures climb too high. What should be a safe haven becomes a place families need to escape.
Adding to the problem, nearly a quarter of low-income households (23%) don’t know how to track their energy usage. Without understanding which appliances or behaviors drive up costs, families have no clear path to reducing their bills. They make blind cuts, often sacrificing comfort without seeing meaningful savings.
Low-income households are twice as likely as middle-income families to describe their electricity bills as “highly stressful,” and more than three times as likely compared to upper-income households.
Among generations, Gen X feels the pressure most acutely, with 18% reporting high stress over electricity costs. Millennials (17%) and baby boomers (15%) also struggle with energy-related anxiety, while Gen Z reports the lowest stress levels at 11%.
The stress manifests in different ways across age groups. Gen X households, often sandwiched between supporting aging parents and raising children, face compounding financial pressures. Millennials, many of whom entered the workforce during economic downturns, have less of a financial cushion to absorb rising costs. Baby boomers on fixed incomes watch their buying power erode as utility rates climb.
The psychological toll extends beyond bill-paying anxiety. Parents report feeling guilt and shame when they can’t maintain comfortable temperatures for their children. Some describe lying awake at night, calculating whether they can afford to run the air conditioning during the next day’s predicted heat wave. Others ration electricity usage by the hour, creating elaborate schedules that dictate when family members can charge devices, cook meals, or do laundry.
As energy prices rise, the pressure on vulnerable households intensifies, forcing impossible decisions that no family should face. For millions of Americans, the choice between food and electricity isn’t hypothetical anymore. It’s a monthly calculation that endangers their health, safety, and dignity. The survey makes clear that energy poverty isn’t an abstract policy problem but a daily reality affecting what families eat, whether they stay healthy, and if they feel safe in their own homes.
Survey Methodology
Researchers surveyed 1,069 Americans in September 2025 to examine how households cope with rising energy costs. The sample included 43% of respondents from low-income households, 48% from middle-income households, and 9% from upper-income households.
Household income groups were defined based on families with at least three people. Low-income households earned less than $56,600 annually, middle-income households earned between $56,600 and $169,800, and upper-income households earned more than $169,800 annually.
The generational breakdown included 16% Gen Z respondents, 52% millennials, 23% Gen X, and 9% baby boomers. Data collection took place in September 2025 through an online survey platform.
Payless Power, a Texas-based electricity provider, commissioned this research as part of its ongoing examination of energy accessibility and affordability challenges facing American households.
Swedish furniture giant Ikea isn't letting U.S. tariffs slow a $2.2 billion Manhattan expansion, Bloomberg reports. The investment arm of Ikea's largest franchisee just bought 529 Broadway in SoHo to house its second Manhattan location, joining last year's acquisition of 570 Fifth Avenue. The assemble-it-yourself retailer makes the move even as the U.S. introduces new tariffs on kitchen cabinets and upholstered furniture. A spokesman told Bloomberg the company would try to minimize price hikes in one of its most lucrative markets, where sales last year reached $5.5 billion.
One in three Americans now has more credit debt than emergency savings, according to the latest survey by financial services company Bankrate. This is up ten percentage points from 2011, when the company first started polling the question. Meanwhile, around 53 percent of respondents said that their savings were currently exceeding their credit card debt. This is down two percentage points from the same time last year, but slightly up from 2011. Around one in ten Americans is living paycheck-to-paycheck in 2025, not making any debt or saving up money.
Millennials were the most likely to say that they had tapped into their emergency savings over the past 12 months. The most common uses for emergency savings among all groups were unplanned emergency expenses, such as car repairs or medical bills, followed by monthly bills, including rent and mortgages, followed by day-to-day expenses such as food.
The FICO average credit score for U.S. adults dropped by two points from 717 in 2024 to 715 in 2025. The decline was more pronounced among Gen Z adults, whose average credit score fell by three points to 676. This drop is partly attributed to the resumption of student loan collections after Covid-era protections ended, leading to increased delinquencies. FICO credit scores are measured on a scale of 300-850, with scores ranging from 300 to 578 considered poor and 800 to 850 exceptional. Credit scores affect whether individuals can qualify for a credit card, borrow loans for a car or home, and can lower interest rates.
The student loan repayment pause, which was initially granted during the pandemic and extended under the Biden administration, officially ended on April 12, 2025. By law, government agencies are required to notify borrowers at least 60 days in advance before offsetting tax refunds. However, CNBC reports that multiple Americans did not receive these notices, with lawmakers raising concern that some 10 million student borrowers could be at risk of having tax refunds seized without proper warning.
Student loan debt remains a significant issue, with nearly 43 million U.S. adults - about one in six Americans - carrying federal student loan debt. According to the Federal Reserve, the total federal student loan portfolio has now surpassed $1.8 trillion, having more than tripled over the past 15 years. This makes student loans the second-largest category of household debt in the United States, following housing debt, while auto loans rank third.
Another AI Study, Same Story: it's too early to declare disruption
Ever since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, the fear has been the same: AI will replace us.
But study after study is showing: not yet.
The latest? A comprehensive analysis from the Yale Budget Lab.
What Yale Found:
.No large-scale job loss: Occupations most exposed to AI (like knowledge work, finance, professional services) show no measurable decline in employment.
.Labor market stability: The pace of occupational change since ChatGPT launched is nearly identical to past shifts caused by PCs or the internet.
Early career shifts, but nothing dramatic: Younger workers show some signs of occupational change, but it’s unclear if AI is the cause.
This Yale study isn’t standing alone. MIT, ILO, OECD, PWC, and others have all released findings pointing in the same direction:
. AI for now ,is reshaping tasks, not eliminating jobs outright.
. The feared “AI jobs apocalypse” simply hasn’t materialized yet.
Why This Matters
.The narrative of “AI as a mass job destroyer” is not supported by the data.
.The real impact is subtler: how work is done, which tasks are automated, and what skills gain in value.
.For leaders, the focus should be on reskilling, adoption, and productivity gains — not mass layoffs.
The challenge (and opportunity) for organizations is to use this breathing space wisely:
Prepare your workforce, rethink roles, and build the human-AI collaboration model that will define the next decade of work.
With Americans seeking bargains amidst stubborn inflation, Amazon on Wednesday debuted a line of private-label groceries priced largely under $5. "Amazon Grocery" will combine the Amazon Fresh and Happy Belly brands and be available online and at Amazon Fresh stores. The line of over 1,000 items will include not just pantry staples, but fresh foods such as meat, seafood, and dairy. Amazon touts the service for "price-conscious" shoppers in an environment that has seen house brands from the likes of Kroger and Walmart gain market share.
Starting later this year, Facebook and Instagram parent Meta will serve users ads based on their interactions with its AI-infused products, CNBC reports. The user-recommendations update, which Meta describes as "a natural progression of our personalization efforts," was announced on Wednesday, but it will not go into effect until mid-December. The change is a means of tying Meta AI to its all-important online ads business after spending billions to develop the tech. Meta says its digital assistant has now passed the 1 billion monthly active user threshold.
OpenAI's latest video generator, Sora, touts hyperrealistic content capabilities — and raised serious security and privacy concerns. Within 24 hours of the debut of Sora's social, users have proliferated the invite-only platform with "terrifyingly" realistic deepfakes, including forged videos of well-known personalities committing crimes, TechCrunch reports. Without proper guardrails, some fear it may become a vehicle for "disinformation, bullying and other nefarious uses." The AI giant reassured users in a blog post that safeguards are in place to protect individuals' "audio and image likeness" from being stolen.
The buzzy artificial intelligence startup co-founded by ex-OpenAI exec Mira Murati has introduced its first product. An application programming interface dubbed Tinker allows businesses, researchers, and hobbyists to customize open-source frontier AI models for specialized tasks, with support for Meta's Llama and Alibaba's Qwen to start. The firm has previously been tight-lipped about what it was building, and speculation intensified after it recently raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation.
The majority of executives worldwide plan to change roles in the short to mid-term, according to a report by LHH.
LHH’s report showed that while only 14% of executives globally expect to change roles within the next 12 months, 45% are considering a move within the next two to three years.
When combining short-term (within 12 months) and mid-term (2–3 years) intentions, the figures showed that around 71% of executives in Canada, 66% in the UK, 62% in Switzerland, and 56% in both Singapore and Australia expect to make a move.
LHH noted that in traditionally stable markets like the US and Germany, approximately 64% and 44% of executives, respectively, are considering a change within this time frame.
“Executive turnover is no longer a disruption — it’s part of the rhythm of transformation,” Remi Diennet, global head of executive search, said in a press release. “Leaders are increasingly stepping into new roles not out of necessity, but out of a desire to drive impact in environments that match their ambition and values. For organisations, this signals a shift: The ability to attract and onboard visionary leaders quickly will define future success.”
By industry, within pharma/biotech (79%), education (57%), and architecture and engineering (58%), well over half of executives are planning a career move within the next three years.
Meanwhile, the research also found that in the first 12 months in a new role, one in three new leaders report that they don’t feel confident in their personal ability to perform.
Almost as many executives share a similar sentiment about their teams, with 31% of executives stating they do not feel confident in their leadership team’s ability to perform.
As for the top reasons leaders are looking for a new role, 38% said they want a better salary, 36% said they want a better work/life balance, and 30% said they want to develop new skills.
As for the top reasons leaders are looking to stay, 27% said their work is meaningful/fulfilling, 26% said they are happy with the flexibility in their current role, and 26% are happy with their work/life balance.
“Leadership is being redefined,” Nicole Gable, North America recruitment solutions president at LHH, said in a press release. “To stay ahead, organizations need executive talent strategies that identify and recruit leaders with the right skills and provide the support, empathy and partnership they need to succeed in complex, changing environments.”
“The executives who make the biggest impact are those who blend human-centered skills with the ability to leverage technology to communicate vision, drive results, and lead with purpose,” Gable added.