U.S. consumers are anxious. Bankers need to understand why.

American consumers are in an unusual spot. They’ve dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impacts for nearly two years, but the latest unemployment numbers were strong.

Wages have grown faster than they have in decades, but so has inflation. Consumer confidence is down, but retail spending is up. The financial services industry spends a lot of time parsing economic data like this, trying to understand where consumers are statistically — but it’s also critical to understand how consumers feel. Our industry can’t properly meet consumers’ needs without a more complete picture of their circumstances from their point of view.

That’s why our company recently commissioned a survey conducted by Morning Consult. We asked 2,600 people in the U.S. and U.K. for their perspectives on personal finance and the economy, the impacts of COVID-19 and what it means to achieve economic freedom.

Despite all the challenges, nearly six in 10 Americans feel positive about their personal financial future, although that’s fallen 12 percentage points from prepandemic levels. Americans are more evenly divided about the broader economy with 43% feeling positive about the future. However, that’s nearly a 20- percentage-point drop since before COVID-19.

A similar pattern can be seen among low-income Americans, a group that includes people with a household income less than $50,000. Slightly more than half are still positive about their personal financial futures, but that’s down 11 percentage points from prepandemic levels — a drop nearly identical to the general population. Thirty-seven percent now feel positive about the future of the economy; that number was 52% before COVID-19.

Optimism also varies significantly around the country. For example, only a third of Midwesterners feel confident about the future, compared with 43% of Southerners and around half of people in the Northeast and West.

That means that no matter what their bank accounts may say— and the median household checking account balance was 50% higher this July than it was in 2019 — consumers are trending toward a more negative headspace. Financial services companies must meet them where they are and find ways to address the uncertainty they face.

Next, the survey explored people’s perceptions of debt. More Americans reported having current past-due debt (44%) than they did prepandemic (39%). Interestingly, and perhaps counterintuitively, these numbers are lower for low-income people (only 40% reported current past-due debt vs. 33% prepandemic). At the same time, Americans’ credit scores just hit a record high. While the economic data and survey data may seem to contradict each other here, keep in mind that the survey data is self-reported. It’s possible that people’s growing pessimism is clouding their perceptions.

Survey respondents were then asked to rank what type of past-due debt creates the most stress for them, and about one-third put credit card debt at the top. However, for low-income people, medical bills were the biggest source of stress. For all respondents, phone/utility bills came in third.

On the whole, though, Americans are quite positive about tackling their debt. Around 60% believe they can reduce or eliminate their debt in the coming year, and that’s true for low-income people, too. The number grows to more than three-quarters for Americans most stressed by credit card debt.

The logical next question is what do consumers think they need to lower their debt? When people were asked to rank options that would help them in those efforts, being able to pause debt repayment if experiencing a hardship and being given more time to pay off debt were equally important. Being provided information on how to tackle debt came in third.

We also wanted to better understand what economic freedom means to people. Across the board, they shared that it means less worry and stress and more enjoyment and peace. In terms of specifics, they shared that it means the ability to save for retirement or a child’s education or having greater freedom to spend money in different ways.

To help them achieve economic freedom, Americans put developing a financial plan for the future in the top spot, although both low-income people and those most stressed by credit card debt ranked improving their credit score the highest. Finding flexible and manageable ways to resolve debt and defining clear financial goals were also rated highly.

It’s clear from the survey results that the pandemic has been a challenging time for many, and there’s plenty of uncertainty about what lies ahead. But there’s hope, too. Financial services companies have an opportunity not only to provide the tools consumers want but also to adopt the empathetic approach they need. Through that framework, we can help people resolve their debts and begin building toward the goal of economic freedom.