Poll: Health Care Costs Top List of Americans’ Biggest Financial Concerns

In a new Gallup poll, Americans called “health care costs” and “lack of money/low wages” the “most important financial problems” facing their families.

Fourteen percent of Americans said that health care costs or low wages were their biggest concern.

Gallup notes that this is the first time that health care costs have “returned to the top of the list” since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

These concerns were followed by issues like “too much debt,” “college expenses,” “retirement savings” and “cost of owning/renting a home.”

Gallup also ranked Americans’ concerns by their income level. Eighteen percent of middle-income Americans (defined in the poll as those making $30,000-$74,999) ranked health care costs as their biggest concern. Higher-income Americans (defined as those making more than $75,000) said that saving for retirement was their biggest financial concern. Low-income Americans (those making less than $30,000) said that “lack of money/low wages” was what worried them most.

The Gallup poll was conducted Jan. 5-8, 2015 with a sample of 804 voting age adults in all 50 U.S. states and Washington, DC.