More than a quarter of Americans used a credit card to buy groceries last year and did not pay off the balance when it was due, according to a new report from the Urban Institute. 

In an ideal world, everyone would be able to pay for food, housing and other necessities with their paycheck.

Instead, “a lot of folks are using cash from payday loans; their credit cards; buy now, pay later services; and savings to be able to afford their groceries,” noted Kassandra Martinchek at the Urban Institute.

One in five said they dipped into savings. This is the first year that Urban Institute has asked people how they pay for groceries, so we don’t know if the numbers are trending up or down.

But Martincheck said we do know that food prices have risen in the last couple of years, and at the same time, “there was a paring down of the pandemic safety net policies that were available in earlier years, and the cost of borrowing also grew.”

There are reasons to be optimistic about the direction the economy’s going, however, pointed out William Masters at the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts.

“The evidence is very clear that the rates of inflation are down and that wages have been rising,” he said.

Wages have been rising especially fast for people in low-wage jobs.