A growing share of working-age Americans are taking on debt just to put food on the table, and more of them are falling behind on those obligations, according to new research from the Urban Institute that offers a window into the financial pressures facing consumers in collections today.
More than one in four adults ages 18 to 64 who used a credit card to pay for groceries in 2025 experienced repayment challenges, either carrying a balance while making only minimum payments or missing the minimum payment altogether, according to the Urban Institute’s Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey, conducted in December 2025.
The share of working-age adults who used credit cards for groceries and did not always make the minimum payment climbed to 8.7% in 2025, up from 7.1% in 2023. Among moderate-income households, those earning between 200% and 400% of the federal poverty level, the jump was steeper, rising from 9.3% to 12.3% over the same period.
Why it matters: The findings suggest that a meaningful and growing segment of consumers entering collections did not fall behind on discretionary purchases. They fell behind buying food. Missed minimum payments trigger late fees and penalty interest rates that compound quickly, meaning balances may be growing faster than consumers’ ability to repay them. For agencies and creditors, that context should inform everything from hardship program eligibility to payment plan structuring.
The bigger picture: Nearly two-thirds of working-age adults paid for groceries with a credit card in 2025. Beyond plastic, consumers are stacking multiple financing strategies to cover food costs:
- Nearly 1 in 10 used Buy Now, Pay Later products to buy groceries, and 34.8% of them missed a BNPL payment. Among low-income BNPL users, nearly half missed a payment.
- About 19.6% of working-age adults drew down savings that were not intended for daily expenses.
- Roughly 5.2% used cash from a recent payday loan to buy food, with low-income adults nearly twice as likely as moderate-income adults to do so.
Consumers who reported that their grocery costs increased “a lot” in the past year, just over half of all respondents, were significantly more likely to rely on all of these strategies and to miss payments on them.
Grocery prices have climbed roughly 32% cumulatively over the past five years, and the Urban Institute cautioned that while credit and savings can smooth household spending in the short term, overreliance on them may signal deepening financial instability, particularly for low- and moderate-income families. For an industry whose portfolios increasingly include this debt, the report is a reminder that repayment capacity for many consumers is being squeezed at the most basic level of the household budget.
