TL;DR
- 63% of Americans say they are falling behind financially
- Debit cards offer control but little reward; credit cards offer reward but come with debt and anxiety, and 47% say credit is the only real path to meaningful rewards.
- 60% of Americans would switch to a spending card with real rewards and no borrowing required, and 57% want those rewards paid in cash rather than points.
- The Krak Card is our response: cashback paid as real money, not points, with no debt required to earn it.
Most Americans are keeping their heads above water and still feel like they’re falling behind.
That is the clearest signal in a survey we commissioned this summer to understand how people actually experience the financial products in their wallets, and it points to a gap that has gone unaddressed for a long time.
The picture that emerges is of people caught in the middle.
On one side is a banking system that keeps them afloat but does little to help them get ahead. On the other is a credit system they feel compelled to engage with, that offers the only real path to rewards, but asks them to take on debt and risk to reach it.
Between those two options, most people told us, there isn’t a product built for both control and progress.
Financial anxiety is nearly universal, and it doesn’t stop at higher incomes
Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63%) told us they are falling behind financially compared to where they expected to be at their age. That feeling is not confined to lower-income earners. It reaches 68% among those making $50,000 or less, but still holds true for 49% of those earning $100,000 or more.
The sense of being behind sits alongside a more complicated reality. Only 41% of adults told us they feel financially stable right now. Around 30% feel unstable, and about a quarter (23%) describe themselves as stable in some ways but stressed in others.
Feelings of stability climb sharply with income, reaching 73% among $100,000-plus earners, which underlines how differently the current system works depending on where you sit.
Part of the frustration is about what people believe financial products are even for. Twice as many Americans say most financial products today help people get by (42%) as say they help people get ahead (22%). For products that are often positioned as a way to build wealth, that is a a striking lack of confidence.
People don’t dislike their primary banks, but they feel underserved by them
One of the more revealing findings is that dissatisfaction with banking is not really about the bank itself. Nearly nine in ten adults (87%) are satisfied with their primary checking account provider, and four in five (79%) feel confident they understand their bank’s fees.
Underneath that satisfaction, though, is a quieter frustration. Three in five Americans (58%) say they are frustrated with traditional banks. The specific complaints are practical, not ideological: high fees (23%), limited rewards on debit cards (22%), slow transfers (16%), and unexpected charges tied to account usage (16%).
The deeper issue is growth. Only 46% of Americans believe their bank helps their money grow meaningfully over time, while 33% say it does not. That gap matters, because it is the difference between a place to keep money and a place that helps money do something.
One in four adults (26%) also say they have felt taken advantage of by their bank through fees, charges, or unclear policies, and nearly as many (24%) have discovered fees they were already being charged without realizing it.
he throughline isn’t necessarily anger at banks. It is a sense that the relationship is designed to keep people steady, not to move them forward.
Just over half of adults (54%) say they have access to financial products that help them both manage day-to-day finances and build long-term wealth, and that access is heavily skewed by income: 78% among $100,000-plus earners, 61% in the middle, and only 43% among those earning under $50,000.
For most people, the card in their wallet forces a trade-off between control and rewards
Ask people about the cards they carry, and a clear trade-off appears. Debit is associated with control. Credit is associated with rewards. Almost no one gets both.
Debit cards are widely seen as easy to use (49%) and safe (30%), and about a quarter of people (26%) associate them with control over spending. But that same familiarity comes with a ceiling. One in four Americans (24%) say debit cards are designed for getting by, not getting ahead.
Similar numbers say debit cards do not help build wealth (22%) or that they offer no meaningful rewards (21%). Notably, 53% of debit card holders already use one primary card for almost everything, which suggests that a better-designed spending card could displace the incumbent rather than merely sit alongside it.
Our research suggests credit cards occupy the opposite corner. Nearly half of Americans (47%) agree that credit cards are the only way to access meaningful rewards today, a view that rises to 56% among people who hold credit cards.
But the rewards come bundled with anxiety. More than four in ten credit card holders (42%) worry about paying off their balance at the end of the month, including 45% of those earning under $50,000 and 38% of those earning $100,000 or more.
And for some, the rewards themselves are a source of frustration. While 38% say their credit card’s rewards roughly match the fees they pay, a clear majority (64%) are frustrated with their existing credit card rewards programs.
The top complaints are high annual fees (27%), low cashback rates (26%), rewards that expire (23%), rewards that are hard to redeem (22%), and confusing points systems (19%). That frustration is actually strongest at the top of the income scale: 74% of $100,000-plus earners report frustration with credit card rewards.
Perhaps the most overlooked finding is who sits outside the credit system entirely. Three in ten Americans (30%) do not own a credit card at all. Their reasons split evenly between choice and circumstance: a preference for cash or debit (40%), ineligibility due to credit history (23%), and a deliberate desire to avoid debt (22%).
In other words, credit avoidance is both chosen and imposed, and either way it locks a large group of people out of the main channel for rewards.
There is real appetite for something different
The survey does not just diagnose a problem. It describes, in fairly specific terms, the product people say they would move to.
Most Americans (60%) say they would be likely to switch to a spending card that offers compelling rewards without requiring them to borrow money. That openness is broad. It includes 68% of credit card holders and 64% of debit card holders, and even 43% of people who do not currently hold a credit card at all.
The factors that would convince them to make the switch are fairly simple. They’re looking for:
- Cards with no annual fee (45%)
- Rewards paid in cash rather than points (38%)
- The ability to earn meaningful interest or yield on a balance (29%)
- Higher or uncapped cashback on purchases (28%)
- Rewards that don’t require borrowing (26%)
The preference for cash is decisive. When asked how they would most want to be rewarded, 57% chose cash deposited directly into their account, far ahead of gift cards (12%), travel points (6%), store discounts (5%), and cryptocurrency (4%).
That preference holds across income levels and applies to credit and non-credit-card holders alike. People are not asking for a more elaborate rewards program. They are asking to be paid.
There is also early, measurable demand for managing wealth across multiple asset classes. More than half of adults (53%) say they would value the ability to hold money across a wide range of assets, including currencies, gold, and other investments, rising to 69% among higher earners.
What we took from this
We commissioned this research because we were building a unique product for the US card market, and we wanted to test our assumptions against what people actually believe.
The data described a specific gap: people want the rewards that have historically required a credit card, without the debt, the anxiety, or the exclusion that comes with it.
They want to be paid in cash, not points. They want control over their own money, and a growing number are open to holding and spending value in more than one form, provided they stay in charge of how it works.
The Krak Card is our response to that gap. It pays cashback on everyday spending, delivered as money rather than points, and it does not require anyone to take on debt to earn it. It lets customers hold value across a range of assets and choose what they spend and when, including the ability to spend dollars first and leave other holdings untouched.
It is designed as an addition, not a replacement, to the way people already manage their money.
We are sharing the survey’s full findings here because the gap they describe is bigger than any single product. It reflects a financial system that has worked well for people at the top and left most others managing rather than building. That is a problem worth naming clearly.
Methodology: This poll was conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of Krak between July 2 and 5, 2026, among a sample of 2,001 US adults. Interviews were conducted online, and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of adults based on gender, age, race, educational attainment, region, gender by age, and race by educational attainment. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Krak debit card is issued by Lead Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. Krak is a financial technology company, not a bank. Account balances are not FDIC- or SIPC-insured. Available to eligible U.S. residents only; not available in all states. See terms.
Rate depends on average balance. T&Cs apply. See Support Center for more info.
The post Afloat, but not ahead: what a survey of Americans told us about banking, credit, and getting ahead appeared first on Kraken Blog.
