Americans once again are most likely to cite health-care costs as the biggest financial problem facing their family today, a new Gallup poll has found.
A total of 17% of poll respondents named healthcare, followed by lack of money or low wages, which were cited by 11%, Gallup said. A year ago, those two issues and personal debt essentially tied for first; health care was also the clear leader in 2017.
Rounding out the list of Americans’ financial fears were: college expenses, housing costs and taxes, with 8% of Americans citing each.
The April 17-30 survey comes at a time of high economic confidence, when relatively few Americans name economic matters as the most important problem facing the country.
Consistent with their sunny financial outlook, 20% of Americans respond that they do not have a "most important financial problem." That is one of the highest percentages responding "none" in Gallup's 14-year trend on the question, surpassed only by the 21% who said so in a February 2005 poll. Still, even in these generally good economic times, the vast majority of Americans do mention some financial matter that is a major concern for their family.
Meanwhile, Americans cite health care as the top priority for the federal government to tackle — trumping the economy, immigration and national security, a new poll has found.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey, half of Americans say they’d would support paying more in taxes to assure that all Americans have health care.
“The American people are saying we still need this fixed,” Lara Brown, director of George Washington University’s graduate school of political management, told the Journal.