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What percentage of American adults rarely or never get the social and emotional support they need?

16.6% of American adults rarely or never get the social and emotional support they need - about 17 in every 100, or 2 in 10. That is the figure published by the Household Pulse Survey for 2026.

Where this number comes from

Survey

Household Pulse Survey

What it measured

HTOPS HPS 2607 (collected July 15 – August 3, 2026), item SOC_SUPPORT (“How often do you get the social and emotional support you need?”), counting responses 4=Rarely, 5=Never, as a share of adults who answered (4.2% did not). Computed from the Census Bureau's public-use microdata with the person weight PWEIGHT; the standard error uses its 80 successive-difference replicate weights (4/80 · Σ of squared deviations). The counts and standard errors behind it reproduce the published table health3b. Census labels these estimates experimental; unweighted n = 12,223.

Population

U.S. adults aged 18 and over

Year

2026

95% confidence interval

14.56% to 18.64% (derived from the published standard error)

Work of the U.S. federal government - public domain. See the source data

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