At least 55% of Americans admit to facing financial hardships under inflation

Yahoo Finance Live examines various data showing how Americans are contending with moderate to severe financial hardships in 2022, along with the surge in GoFundMe usage this year to pay for essential goods.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Well, a big voting point here for voters this midterm election was inflation. Now there was a recent study out from Gallup, a survey saying that 55% of people saying that rising prices are causing financial hardship, while 13% say that these higher prices are causing severe hardship.

That's according to that new poll conducted in November, even as gas prices, though, had been on the decline. The price of gas has fallen pretty significantly from the summer highs when they were above 5 bucks a gallon, but they continue, clearly, to have an impact.

So we wanted to conduct our own poll and ask specifically about gas prices. We asked, are current gas prices causing you financial hardship? Nearly 53% said yes. 44% said no, which is actually higher than what I was expecting to see. 3.1% said that they have more to say and wanted to give us a more colorful thought of maybe the hardships that they have experienced over the last several months.

But Dave, I think the clear takeaway is while we have seen some improvement on prices in particular sectors, I mean, considering gas prices, clearly, Americans are under a tremendous amount of pressure.

DAVE BRIGGS: How would you answer that question, the gas price question?

SEANA SMITH: So I would have said-- I think I was scarred from what I saw over the summer. So I feel a lot better about filling up my tank today than I did in August.

DAVE BRIGGS: And yeah, I suppose it depends upon your perspective. Every time I fill up, I'm still aghast.

SEANA SMITH: It's still way too much money.

DAVE BRIGGS: I am horrified, and yes, I would actually absolutely answer yes, it is dramatically impacting my decisions and my spending. And look, everything we do, we are just getting more baffled at the inflation today, in particular, our household. It is difficult, and it is weighing on American consumers.

I was surprised that the upper income Americans who said they were impacted by inflation went from 28% to 42% in one month. That's a huge jump among those that we think are not impacted by these decisions, but when you hear Walmart say their biggest market share improvement has been among those who make six figures.

We also have some numbers from GoFundMe out with their 2022 year in review. The results clearly point to families struggling to purchase everyday items. The company revealing a 110% increase in fundraisers for baby formula, a 60% increase in fundraisers for gas, and 10% rise in fundraisers for groceries.

GoFundMe even creating an essentials fund where donations go to many people to pay for rent, food, utilities. And that fund has over a half million dollars in donations so far. Times are tough across the country and across all income brackets, as we just told you.

SEANA SMITH: They certainly are, and that really illustrates just exactly how tough it is for millions and millions of Americans to even pay for some of the basic necessities.