Today's Topic 👉 Financial Wellness

More than one in three U.S. adults would not cover a surprise $400 expense with cash or its equivalent. ⁽¹⁾

That’s not just a poverty statistic. It’s a financial wellness statistic.

Here’s the finding that surprises most people: how strained you feel about money matters for your health, regardless of how much you make. Across 58 long-term U.S. studies, more than 8 in 10 found that financial strain was linked to depression. ⁽²⁾

A 2024 study that followed about 1,300 U.S. adults from 2020 to 2023 found that people with less than $5,000 in savings and investments had more than twice the odds of screening positive for depression or anxiety as people with $100,000 or more. And once savings were accounted for, income itself was no longer linked to anxiety. ⁽³⁾

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) breaks financial well-being into four parts: ⁽⁵⁾

1. Control over day-to-day finances

2. Capacity to absorb a financial shock

3. Being on track toward goals

4. Freedom to make choices

The takeaway: Financial wellness isn’t only about a number. It’s also about your relationship with your financial situation.

Knowing more about money helps, but it isn’t enough on its own. Financial education improves money habits, but the effects are modest. ⁽⁶⁾ Tools that take the decision out of your hands, like automatic savings, pick up where knowledge leaves off. ⁽⁷⁾

AT A GLANCE

• Money stress is a health issue. Financial strain, the felt sense of not having enough, is consistently linked to depression. High debt relative to what you own is tied to higher stress and higher blood pressure. ⁽²⁾⁽⁴⁾

• Low savings, twice the odds. Adults with less than $5,000 in savings and investments had more than twice the odds of screening positive for depression and anxiety as those with $100,000 or more. ⁽³⁾

• Financial wellness is a relationship, not just a number. The CFPB framework: control, capacity to absorb a shock, progress toward goals, freedom to choose. Each one gives you a place to start. ⁽⁵⁾

FEATURED RESOURCE

CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale

One of the most carefully developed free measures of financial wellness available. ⁽⁵⁾

Built and tested with a nationally representative U.S. sample. It’s free, validated, and publicly available → See the scale

Fill out the 10-item questionnaire (covering the four elements of financial well-being), and you’ll get a score from 0 to 100 that you can compare with national results and retake over time.

MORE ON THE TOPIC

Want the full breakdown? The full Smarter Wellness article covers:

• The health evidence on financial stress

• How structural factors shape what individual behavior can do

• The behavioral economics of why knowing what to do doesn’t mean doing it

• What the research says about financial education

• A practical four-step framework for improving financial wellness without requiring a salary increase

Next up → Environmental Wellness: Nature, built environments, attention, and what the research actually says about spending time outside.

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Brian S. Dye, Ed.D., is the founder of Applied Wellness, an evidence-based wellness education platform that helps people access, understand, and apply credible wellness information. Learn more at appliedwellness.co.

SOURCES

1. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. (2026). Economic well-being of U.S. households in 2025.

2. Ettman, C. K., et al. (2023). Financial strain and depression in the U.S.: A scoping review. Translational Psychiatry, 13, 168.

3. Ettman, C. K., et al. (2024). Financial assets and mental health over time. Scientific Reports, 14, 27370.

4. Sweet, E., et al. (2013). The high price of debt. Social Science & Medicine, 91, 94–100.

5. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (2015). Measuring financial well-being: A guide to using the CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale.

6. Kaiser, T., et al. (2022). Financial education affects financial knowledge and downstream behaviors. Journal of Financial Economics, 145(2), 255–272.

7. Madrian, B. C., & Shea, D. F. (2001). The power of suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) participation and savings behavior. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(4), 1149–1187.

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