What were you doing in 2007? If you could see the future, you’d know that the economy was about to crater. There was a major housing crisis brewing, and that plus the Great Recession were about to land like a one-two punch. In the last 19 years, wages have been climbing steadily (up 66%), but if you think that’s been enough to even maintain the same standard of living as back then, well, the people of 2026 would like a word.
Paying for rent, groceries and a used car hasn’t gotten any easier over the past two decades, and a new report from InvestorsObserver has the stats to prove it. People are actually working multiple days more than they used to every year just to afford basic necessities!
How many more days are we talking? Ahead, we dive into the report, and it’s not pretty. Read on to learn just how many more days you’re putting in to keep a roof over your head, your car on the road and food on the table.
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How did the report determine the number of extra days people needed to work?
InvestorsObserver compared what Americans earn per hour with the cost of three essentials—rent, groceries and saving for a used car—across all 50 states, looking at how those numbers changed from 2007 to 2025. Using government and industry data, it then calculated how many eight-hour workdays it would take to afford those basics in each of those years.
To do this, researchers pulled wage data from federal sources, rent estimates from housing agencies, grocery prices based on a fixed list of common staples and used-car costs from industry reports. They then combined yearly expenses (rent and food) with the amount someone would need to save annually for a car, using average vehicle ownership timelines.
The final extra-workdays figure shows how many more days the average American now needs to work to afford the same basic standard of living as in 2007.
How many extra days do you need to work to afford the basics compared with 20 years ago?
According to InvestorsObserver’s findings, the average American works seven more days per year than they did in 2007 just to stay in the same place financially. And in the hardest-hit state, workers need to log an extra 25 days per year!
If you’re scratching your head (because there are only so many days in a year, right?), here’s how to visualize this: Imagine a calendar on the wall where, starting on Jan. 1, you cross off the days you work with a big X. Today, it would take 66 days of X’s just to cover three basic necessities: paying rent, buying groceries and saving for a used car. That’s seven more days of X’s than the average American worked in 2007 to pay for the same things, and 25 more X’s in the most expensive state.
But haven’t wages gone up? They have, nearly 66% since 2007, but the cost of living has increased even faster, meaning essentials now consume a larger share of income. So even with higher wages, Americans have effectively lost ground because prices on essentials have risen faster than pay.
Which state’s workers need the most extra workdays to live like it’s 2007?
Delaware got the unfortunate top spot on this list. People here need to work 25.4 additional eight-hour workdays a year—more than five full work weeks!—just to maintain the same standard of living they had in 2007.
One of the main reasons is rising rent costs: With high demand and tight supply, Delaware’s rents jumped nearly 24% from 2007 to late 2022 and continued rising. In 2023, the state ranked among the top five states in the nation for housing costs, with a 14.5% year-over-year increase. Workers in Delaware now put in about 18 days a year just to pay for housing.
Used cars have also become significantly pricier, according to InvestorsObserver’s report. Back in 2007, the average passenger car in the U.S. was 9.2 years old, and a worker in Delaware needed about 35 hours a year to save for one. By 2025, that number rose nearly 75%, to over 61 hours. To add insult to injury, the typical car on the road got older, averaging 13 years old today.
What other states need the most extra workdays?
Many of the states topping InvestorsObserver’s list are located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the country, and all of them share a sobering reason: Skyrocketing housing costs, especially in major metropolitan areas where rent increases have significantly outpaced rises in hourly wages. West Coast states have also seen similar trends.
Here are the 10 states where workers need the most extra workdays to make ends meet:
- Delaware: 25.4 extra days
- Maryland: 18.5 extra days
- New York: 18.4 extra days
- New Jersey: 16.2 extra days
- California: 15.8 extra days
- Tennessee: 13.7 extra days
- Oregon: 13.4 extra days
- Florida: 12.9 extra days
- Massachusetts: 11.3 extra days
- Washington: 10.6 extra days
Which state’s residents work the most days to afford the basics?
Sorry, residents of Hawaii. You spend the most amount of time working to pay for necessities. According to the report, the people of the Aloha State put in 86.6 full eight-hour days each year just to afford the three basics.
Of course, it’s no secret that the cost of living in Hawaii is high in general, and that’s due to a few factors. Housing is the biggest expense, with the median price of a single-family home exceeding $1 million—the highest in the country. High taxes also don’t help things: Hawaii has one of the nation’s top individual income tax rates and an estate tax that ties for No. 1 with Washington.
Everyday goods are also more expensive in Hawaii because shipping to the islands can cost up to 300% more than routes elsewhere. This is largely due to the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, which restricts how cargo moves between U.S. ports.
What are the top 10 most expensive states?
The 10 states where people work the most extra days share a pattern: With the exception of Nevada, they are all densely populated coastal areas with sought-after cities and high costs of living. In these 10 spots, workers have to spend the most hours just to keep up—no matter how high their wages are.
Here are the states that made this top 10 list:
- Hawaii: 86.6 workdays
- New Jersey: 83.6 workdays
- Maryland: 80.9 workdays
- Delaware: 80.3 workdays
- Massachusetts: 76.5 workdays
- Rhode Island: 76.4 workdays
- California: 75.3 workdays
- Florida: 74.4 workdays
- Nevada: 74.2 workdays
- Connecticut: 72.2 workdays
So where in the U.S. can people work less but still afford the basics?
There are three states—Idaho, Arkansas and South Dakota—where you can work fewer days than you did in 2007 yet still afford rent, a used car and groceries. Not surprisingly, these three states also ranked high in affordability.
According to U.S. News & World Report, Arkansas is the No. 1 most affordable state, while South Dakota came in at No. 5. Idaho comes in a little lower, ranking 21st overall, but the cost of living in Idaho is 6% lower than the national average; housing is 14% lower, and utilities are 22% lower as well.
Here’s how many fewer workdays you need to afford the basics in these three states:
- Idaho: 4.9 fewer workdays
- Arkansas: 3.8 fewer workdays
- South Dakota: 0.2 fewer workdays
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Sources:
- InvestorsObserver: “State-by-state analysis: Americans now work up to 25 extra days a year to maintain 2007 basic living standards”
- Nerd Wallet: “Rent Growth Continues to Top Inflation— What That Means for You”
- Grassroot Institute of Hawaii: “Why is Hawaii so expensive?”
- U.S. News & World Report: “Affordability”
- RentCafe: “Cost of Living in Idaho”
The post Here’s How Many Extra Days You Need to Work in 2026 to Afford the Life You Had in 2007 appeared first on Reader's Digest.
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