4 min read
At the time of my June 2025 article, my core message still felt underweighted in mainstream wellbeing conversations. Mental and physical health were receiving the majority of attention, while financial wellness was often treated as an adjacent benefit, or something to “get to later.”
What’s interesting is what’s happened since. The data hasn’t pushed back on that idea — it’s reinforced it.
nudge’s 2025 Global Financial Wellbeing Research shows that financial health is consistently the weakest area of people’s overall wellbeing, yet it has one of the strongest correlations with stress, anxiety, sleep disruption and confidence. In other words, the area we invest in least may be driving many of the outcomes we’re trying hardest to fix.
MassMutual’s 2025 Health & Wealth Habits Report captures this contradiction clearly. Eighty percent of Americans say they make better financial decisions when they are actively investing in their health and wellness. Yet 36% say financial pressures force them to sacrifice aspects of their health. More than a quarter (27%) report sacrificing financial stability just to address healthcare needs.
People understand the connection between health and money. The problem is that financial pressure forces trade-offs — and health is often what gets deprioritized.
When you look more closely at the findings, the choices people make are stark. Nearly three in ten Americans (29%) say financial challenges have prevented them from prioritizing their health and wellness in the past year. Among Gen Z, that number rises to 52%. Millennials aren’t far behind at 39%. Women are disproportionately affected (35% compared to 23% of men).
People are skipping crucial support for health: dental check-ups, vision exams, medications, healthy food choices and preventative care. Almost four in ten Americans (39%) report skipping at least one health appointment or purchase in the past 12 months because of cost. Forty-five percent say they’ve gone without wellness care such as healthy groceries, medication or vitamins, or fitness memberships.
If we’re surprised that stress, anxiety and burnout continue to rise, this context matters.
Despite all of this, many wellbeing frameworks still focus almost exclusively on physical and mental health outcomes. These frameworks are valid — but they’re incomplete.
They tell us where the pain is. They rarely explain why it’s happening.
We measure anxiety, stress, sleep and burnout in detail, but often fail to account for one of the most consistent underlying drivers: financial strain. As a result, many wellbeing strategies are working downstream, treating symptoms rather than causes.
The MassMutual data makes that “why” hard to ignore. Americans who rate their financial health as above average are nearly four times more likely to rate their physical health as above average (68% versus 18%). They’re also more than three times as likely to rate their mental health as above average (72% versus 22%). They’re significantly more likely to exercise regularly, get enough sleep, and eat a balanced diet.
Financial habits alone account for around 40% of how people perceive their physical health, and 24% of how people perceive their mental health.
That’s not correlation you can wave away. It suggests financial wellness is a leading indicator of broader health outcomes.
One of the clearest examples of this connection shows up at night. A third of Americans (33%) say they lose sleep due to financial worries. Among Gen Z, that number jumps to 59%.
More than half of those losing sleep say it has contributed to a decline in their mental or emotional health. Nearly four in ten say it has actually made their financial situation worse. Financial stress creates a feedback loop — one that traditional wellbeing interventions struggle to break.
For employers, the implication is straightforward. If financial stress is driving mental and physical health outcomes, financial wellbeing cannot remain siloed or secondary.
The solution starts with financial education — but not the kind most organizations default to.
What people need is sustained, practical, behavior-based financial education that builds confidence over time. The kind that helps employees take tangible steps: budgeting, managing debt, building emergency savings, understanding benefits, and planning for retirement in a way that feels achievable.
Global wellness data does a good job of showing us where people are struggling. Financial wellness data goes one step further — it shows us where many of those struggles begin.
If financial wellness is the foundation, it’s time we stopped building around it and started building on it.
Do you know why employers aren’t connecting physical health outcomes with financial health? I’d enjoy seeing your comments/thoughts, or please reach out if you’d like to discuss in more detail.