A U.S. family with children needed about $145,000 in annual income to be considered economically secure. About 49% of Americans lived below that threshold.

The $145,000 benchmark described economic security as having enough money to cover expenses including adequate food, clothing, housing, health care, child care and transportation. It also included the ability to pay for postsecondary education and student loan repayments, maintain savings for emergencies and retirement, and cover additional costs such as personal care products.

Gregory Acs, vice president of Urban's tax and income supports division and a co-author of the report, said the findings matched what he heard from households. "That is consistent with the experiences that we're hearing from people — that they might not be destitute, but some of them are skipping bills — and some of them are making their bills on a regular basis, but they're not getting ahead," Acs said.

Earning above the $145,000 annual income threshold allows people to get ahead and feel financially secure. "They feel like they're on the hamster wheel economy," Acs said.

In 2024, the median household income for married couples in the U.S. was $128,700. The government’s official poverty line stood at $33,000 for a family of four.

The report also listed different income levels associated with economic security for other household types. Households under age 65 without children needed about $95,900 in annual earnings to meet basic needs, while families with at least one adult over age 65 required $108,500.

Household circumstances were linked to different rates of falling below the economic security threshold, according to the data. Single-parent households had among the lowest rates of economic security, with about 90% below the proposed threshold.

About 8 in 10 U.S. renters fell below the economic security line, roughly double the rate of homeowners. About 45% of families with one member over the age of 65 lacked economic security, and households with at least one adult over age 65 tended to have higher health care costs.

Acs said greater economic security could affect daily life beyond bill-paying. "If you have more people feeling that their efforts are rewarded, that they have a stronger sense of autonomy, they are able to devote more time to their own communities, to their own families," he said. "Parents can invest more in their kids — time, energy, money," he said.

The report’s authors also pointed to a related public discussion of income and basic costs. Michael Green posited that Americans who earn less than $140,000 should be considered poor because their income is insufficient to pay for basics like housing, child care and food; Acs said, "He called it a poverty rate — I think it actually was more of an economic security rate," and, "His intuition, in his back-of-the-envelope calculation, is broadly consistent with the way we added things up."