FILE PHOTO: Pedestrians, including a person holding an umbrella to block UV rays, walk through Times Square in New York City, U.S., August 8, 2025. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper/File Photo

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. workers are becoming more stressed about their rising personal debts and financial health, a Bank of America survey showed.

Of the respondents polled by BofA, 47% of employed people said they had a sense of financial well-being, dropping from 52% at the start of the year.

Nearly 85% of consumers carried some type of personal debt, while 26% of the workforce was seeking help in areas such as emergency savings, paying down debt, and overall financial wellness, compared with 13% in 2023, according to the May survey of more than 1,000 people working full-time.

While almost seven in 10 employees are more optimistic about their financial future over the next three years, their optimism waned over the next year, the survey showed.

Nearly 77% of the employees surveyed were worried about the economy. The U.S. labor market is slowing and consumers with the highest credit scores are starting to fall behind in debt repayments, credit scoring company VantageScore said in an earlier report.

(Reporting by Nupur Anand in New York; Editing by Lananh Nguyen and Stephen Coates)