More Americans are having a harder time paying everyday bills

Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman discusses Americans' financial stability as the pandemic continues to affect working conditions.

Video Transcript

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- You have heard ad nauseam about the metaverse. I'd rather be in the newmaverse. That's a new invention from our Rick Newman, who is trying out something new.

I know you always like to interact with the people, Rick Newman. You are famous for engaging with the trolls on Twitter, at least famous in our office for that practice. But you're going on asking people to comment on various questions and things you have written about. So tell us what you did this time around as you're starting off this effort.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah. They're not all trolls. And I like to hear back from people about what's happening in real people's lives. So a few weeks back I wrote about some new data that shows that people are actually having a harder time paying everyday bills. That comes as, of course, all that stimulus aid ended in 2021.

So I asked people, what's going on? Are you having more trouble getting by? And if so, why is that happening? And one of the interesting things I found, Julie, is this largely breaks along circumstantial lines.

So there are some people who were just lucky to work in a field that actually did very well during COVID. And we know that was people in the information sector-- that might include us-- but also people who worked in auto dealerships because there was a surge in demand for cars and prices went up and things like that.

But on the flip side of that, circumstances really worked against some other people. And I found that people who, number one, just worked in service businesses or own service businesses really struggled. I talked with one guy, for example, who's a massage therapist in New York State. And his business is only back to about 60% of what it was before COVID.

And he's thinking of getting out of that business. And the reason is obvious, people are just not going out to those service jobs. So those are the people who are still struggling.

Some people said to me, you know, the pandemic aid has ended, but the pandemic has not ended. So what's going on? And this is a question that Congress, even now, is grappling with.

There's talk about perhaps including a little bit more pandemic aid and bills in the next couple of months. But it's probably not going to include stimulus checks. We're probably done with that.

It's probably not going to include any more extended jobless aid. And of course, Democrats are trying, and so far failing, to continue that expanded child tax credit that ended in 2021. So a lot of people are facing financial hardship still because of COVID.

- Rick, when I saw you working on this story and some of the responses, my first thought was this is the impact, real time, of inflation, inflation that is just surging in so many areas.

RICK NEWMAN: That's a complicating factor. So without a doubt, I think this is the biggest story in the economy. And I think it, for sure, is the biggest risk for President Biden at this point. Inflation is now around 7%.

But there are still people who are earning no income. They had to give up their job. I mean, let's not forget about the fact that a lot of people have to deal with children who are at home, school schedules are still not back to normal. So they're struggling now that they're not getting a stimulus check anymore, and not getting jobless aid anymore.

And inflation just makes it worse. But they have an underlying problem which is COVID is still hammering their family finances. And then inflation just makes that a little bit worse.

One other thing, there are just people who had bad luck during COVID. There are people who had family illnesses or who got ill themselves, sometimes not related to COVID. And they feel very stuck. They feel like that it's still not safe to go back to work.

So there are a lot of reasons people are still struggling. And I will point out, we did also hear from a lot of people who said enough is enough. No one can live forever on government aid. And that is a feeling that is fairly pervasive in Congress as well, enough is enough. But not everybody who's really struggling right now just wants a government handout. A lot of people just are not getting by because there's still a lot of damage that COVID has caused to the US economy.

- Yeah. Some of those people still need a bridge. And you know, as you say, there's still a lot of hardship out there. Thank you so much, Rick. Really interesting stuff. And I look forward to more dispatches from the newmaverse going forward.

But in the meantime, coming up, we get a final check on markets for you in this hour. As we see some of the laggards in the Dow here. That is causing that to be the worst performer of the major averages today. We'll be right back.