Financial stress can put incredible strain on workers’ productivity and health, various studies have shown. 

Four in 10 U.S. workers surveyed by the American Staffing Association said their debt — including mortgages, credit card debt, student loans and medical debt — was influencing their career decisions. 

Millennial workers were more likely than any other generation to say debt was affecting those choices. 

Notably, nearly 3 in 4 workers surveyed said they have debt of some kind. “Increased levels of personal debt results in unhealthy levels of stress, damaged credit scores, limited mobility in the job market, reduced quality of life, and reduced prospects for the future for a growing number of individuals and their families,” Richard Wahlquist, CEO of ASA, said in a statement. 

According to a report from PNC Bank earlier this year, 3 in 5 U.S. workers said they lived paycheck to paycheck, and 78% of employers surveyed said their workers were financially stressed — a number that has grown since 2023. 

On top of that, 43% of workers with employer-sponsored insurance carry some kind of medical debt, according to health care advocacy collective Goodroot. Younger workers were more likely to carry medical debt, researchers found, which aligns with ASA’s finding that millennials were most likely to carry some sort of debt. 

Employers do have options to help workers — including a relatively new federal law that allows employers to make contributions to employees’ retirement plans based on qualified student loan payments.  

Abbott’s executive vice president of human resources said that her company’s program, Freedom 2 Save, helps workers focus on paying down debts: If a worker applies 2% or more of their salary to a student loan, they can receive “an annual employer contribution of 5% of their salary to their 401(k) — regardless of whether they contribute to their workplace retirement account themselves,” she wrote.