Americans are becoming less confident about their financial futures — except for those without children, according to a recent LendingTree survey of 2,000 U.S. adults.
Among adults who don’t currently consider themselves wealthy, optimism about becoming wealthy slipped across nearly every demographic LendingTree measured between 2023 and 2025, including age, gender, income and parental status.
Parents of children 18 or older reported the steepest decline, down nine percentage points. Parents with kids under 18 saw a five-point drop.
The lone exception was child-free Americans, with 42% optimistic in 2025 about becoming wealthy, up from 41% in 2023. That bucks the overall trend, as just 38% of Americans who don’t currently see themselves as wealthy believe they ever will be, down from 41% in 2023.
For parents, finding room in the budget for child-related expenses has gotten harder. It costs around $30,000 annually to raise a child young enough to require full-time day care — up 36% since 2023, according to a separate LendingTree study. That figure includes the cost of day care, extra rent, food, clothing, transportation and health insurance, although prices can vary widely by location.
