Recently, someone asked me what I do for work. When I said I work for credit unions, they replied, “So basically like a bank. You hold money and make loans.” I smiled, but it stayed with me. Because if that’s all we are, then we’ve missed something essential. The credit union difference was meant to help people move forward, especially when simply holding money is not enough.

Last month credit unions showed up in Washington DC to speak up.

• We advocated for housing affordability and for economic policies that recognize the rising cost of living.
• We raised our voices in legislative halls and community conversations, making the case that affordability matters because families cannot simply budget their way out of systemic cost pressures.

So, the question before us as credit union professionals is not only what did we advocate for, but what are we doing right now while affordability remains out of reach?

This is where our cooperative responsibility sharpens. When affordability fails, financial wellness and awareness become more important. Credit unions must be willing to look honestly at how much we are investing in the very tools that help people survive, adapt, and build resilience in unaffordable times.

Across the country, Americans are working, earning, and participating in the economy—yet feeling increasingly fragile. National data shows that nearly one in four adults report they are either “just getting by” or “finding it difficult to get by,” despite a strong labor market. Inflation may have cooled off on paper, but everyday expenses—food, housing, healthcare—remain the top source of financial stress. Financial strain has become normalized, described by experts as “the new normal,” driven by persistent costs and rising debt.

Nationally, the picture is sobering. According to the most recent ALICE data, more than 42% of households in the United States, representing over 54 million families, are living below the threshold of financial survival. These are not households struggling because of poor decisions. They are working families earning above the federal poverty level who still cannot consistently afford the basics where they live. This reality touches every region and every type of community, reminding us that affordability is no longer a niche concern, it is something nearly all of us feel in some way. Advocacy alone does not close that gap.

Debt only deepens the strain. American households now carry more than $18 trillion in total debt, with the average household owing over $100,000 across mortgages, auto loans, student loans, and credit cards. Housing costs account for much of this burden, but the impact shows up everywhere in daily life. Families have fewer choices, less flexibility, and almost no margin for error when the unexpected happens.

This is the environment our members are navigating every day.

Financial resilience is the ability to absorb a shock and recover—yet success is not determined by effort, but by awareness, access and wealth. Women—particularly single, widowed, and divorced women—face additional vulnerability driven by caregiving interruptions, lower lifetime earnings, and longer life expectancy. These patterns are not the result of financial illiteracy—they are the cumulative impact of systems that demand resilience while denying the resources required to build it.

This is exactly why credit unions exist.

Credit unions were not founded during times of abundance. They were created when people were locked out of fair credit, when wages did not stretch far enough, and when communities had to rely on one another. That history matters right now.

If affordability is the aspiration, then financial wellness is the bridge—the practical, tangible way credit unions can help members navigate reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. And that requires more than good intentions. It requires investment.

Credit unions must challenge themselves to revisit how much they are investing in financial wellness resources for both members and staff. Financial wellness cannot live solely on a webpage or in a quarterly initiative. It must be embedded, funded, measured, and prioritized as core infrastructure.

We have a duty to teach people how to manage money in the context they are living in. That means:

• Teaching budgeting when costs are rising faster than wages
• Teaching debt management when credit is being used to survive, not splurge
• Teaching savings strategies when even small buffers can prevent crisis

But teaching alone is not enough. Credit unions must also tell stories—clearly, consistently, and courageously—of how financial wellness resources made a difference when things were not affordable.

We need to lift the members who avoided eviction because they understood their options early. The employee who felt more confident helping members because their own financial wellness was supported. The family that built a $500 emergency fund that prevented a spiral into high‑cost debt.

These stories are not “soft.” They are proof of impact. They show boards, regulators, and communities that financial wellness is not charity, it is cooperative strategy.

Importantly, this work must include our staff. Frontline employees are not immune to the same affordability pressures facing members. When credit unions invest in financial wellness for staff, they do more than support morale—they build credibility, empathy, and sustainability into the organization itself.

Many credit unions are already modeling what this looks like: embedding financial health measurement into strategy, partnering with trusted counseling organizations, designing products that encourage savings and removing limitations that have predatory alternatives looking like better solutions than credit unions. The cooperative movement has always been about action in the gap between what is and what should be.

We will continue to advocate for affordability—we must. But while we do, we cannot leave members navigating unaffordable realities without the tools, knowledge, and support to survive them. Financial wellness is not a side initiative for calmer economic times. It is the work of right now.

If credit unions fully step into this moment by investing boldly in financial wellness, expanding reach, equipping staff and members, and telling stories of real impact—we will not only help people get through unaffordable times, we will prove, once again, why credit unions were created in the first place.

Original article here.