More Americans say they can't pay their bills. Here are the states where it's worst.

A growing number of Americans say they are struggling to pay their bills, battered by inflation and the loss of federal pandemic aid.

About 36% of consumers say it has been "somewhat" to "very difficult" for them to pay their usual bills in the last seven days, according to the Census Bureau's most recent Household Pulse survey, which gathered responses during the first two weeks of February. That represents a 25% increase compared with a year earlier, and is higher than even in the early months of the pandemic, when households were buoyed by expanded unemployment aid and stimulus checks.

The health of the American consumer is key to the U.S. economy, which relies on consumer spending for 70 cents of every $1 in economic activity. Increasingly, however, there are signs that more households are reaching a breaking point, weighed down by grocery prices that have jumped 20% in two years and rents that have surged 13%.