Is a 6-figure paycheck needed for financial security? More than a quarter of adults say yes.

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A large majority of U.S. adults in a May survey by Bankrate, 77%, said they aren’t financially secure, signaling a steady increase going back to 2023 and spelling potential complications for employers’ pay strategies.

Additionally, more than one-quarter of the 2,260 respondents said they’d need to earn $150,000 or more per year to feel financially secure and comfortable. That’s nearly double the average full-time salary in the U.S. for 2023, which stood at $81,515 according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics cited by Bankrate. 

The company said that inflation has affected purchasing power, citing consumer price index data from BLS that showed a $100,000 salary in January 2020 had the same buying power as $124,353 in April of this year.

“Getting rich may have once been what many Americans fantasized about, but now, simply living comfortably feels like the new aspiration, as economic challenges make financial stability a rare luxury,” Sarah Foster, Bankrate’s U.S. economy reporter, said in the firm’s analysis.

Bankrate’s survey found a fair amount of pessimism on the part of respondents about their financial futures, too. Nearly one-third said they were not financially secure and likely never would be, which represented an increase from prior years. Only 29% said their version of the “American Dream” seemed likely for them based on today’s economy.

By generation, Generation X workers were most likely to say they aren’t financially secure, followed by Generation Z, millennials and baby boomers. Thirty-five percent of women said they aren’t financially secure and never would be, compared to 29% of men. The percentage of women who said they were secure fell more quickly going back to 2023 compared to the share of men who said the same.

“Though many Americans hold onto the idea of returning to a 1950s-era ‘Golden’ America age, the days when a single, non-college educated breadwinner could sustain an entire family seem like they may be confined forever to the past,” Foster said.

Overall, 3 in 5 U.S. workers say they live paycheck to paycheck, according to a 2024 PNC Bank survey, and nearly a third said they would like early access to their pay. The firm’s survey of employers, meanwhile, found that 78% said their workers were financially stressed.

Benefit plan participants likewise have reported mixed feelings on financial security, according to a Bank of America report on client benefit programs in the second quarter of last year. BofA said that a gender gap persists when it comes to feelings of financial wellness; men in the report reported higher average financial security scores than women.

Base pay is only part of the talent attraction equation, however. Employers also rate access to benefits, work-life balance, training, equity and job security as being among their most desirable components in a job offer, according to a 2024 Randstad report. Compensation remained the most desired trait in the same report, though equity and financial security have moved to the “forefront” of employees’ priorities, a Randstad executive said in a press release.