Every household has its own ledger to keep. Rent, school fees, electricity, groceries, medicine and the occasional expense that refuses to wait until payday. For a growing number of Bangladeshi families, the sums no longer add up. Yet the bills keep arriving, salaries remain largely unchanged and life proceeds with the appearance of normality.
The adjustment happens quietly. A family cancels private tuition. Another postpones a medical examination. Savings accumulated over years disappear in months. Borrowing fills the remaining gap.
Bangladesh’s middle class is learning to maintain its standard of living by steadily dismantling the financial foundations beneath it.
The government's own figures offer a measure of the strain. In its Living Standard Survey 2025, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) questioned 3,000 households at the request of the National Pay Commission. Average monthly household income stood at 33,513 taka against expenditure of 35,311 taka.
The deficit was 1,798 taka a month, or 21,576 taka annually. Nearly half of households, 47.42%, reported borrowing to meet basic living expenses over the preceding year. Even in city corporation areas, where average incomes are higher, almost one in three households had borrowed for necessities.
These figures describe a country in which ordinary consumption increasingly requires financing.
They do not, however, isolate the middle class. And that matters. National averages conceal substantial differences in income, wealth and financial resilience. The BBS findings cannot establish precisely how much middle-income households are borrowing or which expenses they are cutting.
But they expose a vulnerability among families occupying an awkward position in Bangladesh's economic hierarchy. They earn too much to qualify for most poverty-targeted assistance, yet often lack the financial reserves to withstand prolonged inflation, unemployment or illness.
The World Bank estimates Bangladesh's poverty rate at 22.5% this year. Protecting those below the poverty line must remain a priority. Yet economic insecurity does not disappear when a household crosses an official income threshold.
A salaried family can be statistically above poverty and financially close to disaster.
Food provides one measure of the pressure. A BBS study conducted with the World Food Programme, using data collected in June 2023, found that more than 60% of households spent at least half their income on food. Roughly one in ten devoted more than three-quarters to it.
The burden was particularly severe in rural areas. In city corporation areas, only 6.5% of households spent 65% or more of their income on food.
For many urban middle-income families, the more difficult expenses lie beyond the kitchen.
Rent cannot be reduced by purchasing smaller portions. School fees rarely fall because household income has stagnated. Medical bills arrive according to illness rather than affordability.
Housing is especially unforgiving. In Dhaka and Chattogram, rent absorbs a substantial and relatively inflexible portion of household income. Unlike groceries, which allow limited substitution, housing costs cannot be adjusted every week.
When rents rise faster than wages, the difference must come from somewhere else.
Usually, it comes from the future.
The first response is borrowing. The BBS survey shows how widespread this has become. Debt can smooth temporary financial difficulties. But when borrowing finances recurring necessities rather than exceptional expenses, it ceases to be a bridge between paydays and becomes a permanent claim on future income.
The second response is to consume savings.
That, too, has become more expensive. Several large commercial banks have offered roughly 7.5% on one-year fixed deposits, while general inflation reached 8.34% in September.
At those rates, savers lose purchasing power even before accounting for applicable taxes. Money remains in the account, but its ability to purchase goods and services declines.
For families relying on modest deposits to finance retirement, education or emergencies, this erosion is consequential. The discipline of saving offers diminishing protection against rising prices.
The third adjustment is more troubling: households appear to be sacrificing long-term investment in human capital to meet immediate obligations.
The 2022 Household Income and Expenditure Survey showed education's share of average household spending falling from 5.42% to 1.89% over five years. Healthcare's share rose from 4.54% to 6.91%. Meanwhile, average expenditure per student increased by 94%.
These figures do not prove that families universally chose healthcare over schooling. Changes in household composition, enrolment and spending patterns also matter. But they reveal a widening tension between two essential expenses.
When money is limited, treatment for a sick parent may take precedence over additional tuition for a child. The decision is understandable. Its economic consequences may be enduring.
The fourth adjustment concerns nutrition.
Bangladesh made measurable dietary gains between 2005 and 2022. Average daily fruit consumption rose from 32.5 grams to 95.4 grams, while egg consumption increased from 5.2 grams to 12.7 grams.
Those improvements matter because nutrition affects health, learning and productivity.
Whether they have survived the subsequent inflationary period remains uncertain. Food inflation stood at 7.22% in September. Without updated household consumption data, it would be premature to claim that earlier nutritional gains have been reversed.
But the risk deserves attention. Families facing sustained price increases can preserve calorie intake while reducing dietary diversity. Such compromises may escape immediate economic measurement but affect children's development and adults' health.
The implications extend beyond household welfare.
Middle-income consumers support retailers, private schools, healthcare providers, transport operators and countless small businesses. When these families reduce discretionary spending, the effects spread through local economies.
A postponed appliance purchase means lost revenue for a retailer. Cancelled tutoring reduces a teacher's income. Fewer restaurant visits affect workers and suppliers.
Each decision is individually rational. Collectively, they weaken domestic demand.
This is why aggregate economic growth offers an incomplete picture of living standards. An economy can expand while significant sections of its population experience declining financial security.
Bangladesh cannot rely indefinitely on households maintaining consumption through debt and savings depletion. Such spending supports demand today at the expense of demand tomorrow.
The policy response should begin with better measurement.
GDP growth, inflation and poverty rates remain indispensable indicators. But policymakers also need regular information on median household disposable income, debt-servicing burdens, savings depletion and the financial position of households above the poverty threshold.
A national average is useful. It is not a substitute for understanding who is losing ground.
Second, ordinary savings require stronger protection against inflation. Financial regulators and policymakers should examine inflation-linked retail savings instruments, accessible to smaller depositors and designed with clear limits on fiscal exposure.
Compelling banks to offer guaranteed inflation-beating returns, regardless of market conditions, would create its own risks. The objective should be credible protection for small savers without undermining financial stability.
Third, wage-setting must respond more effectively to living costs.
Rigid automatic indexation across the economy could reinforce inflation and impose unsustainable costs on employers. But annual increments bearing little relationship to prices leave salaried households absorbing repeated real-income losses.
More transparent wage reviews, informed by inflation, productivity and sectoral conditions, would offer a practical starting point.
None of these reforms will eliminate financial insecurity. They would, however, acknowledge that the economic condition of a country cannot be judged solely by how many people remain below the poverty line.
The middle class occupies a politically peculiar position. Its members are expected to pay taxes, finance education, purchase services and accumulate savings. Their ability to do so is treated as evidence of economic progress.
Yet many are now meeting those expectations by borrowing against their own future.
Their distress rarely produces demonstrations. A cancelled tutoring session attracts no cameras. Neither does an exhausted savings account or a medical appointment postponed for another month.
The absence of protest should not be mistaken for the absence of damage.
Bangladesh's middle class has not stopped working or aspiring. It is simply finding that maintaining yesterday's standard of living requires sacrificing tomorrow's security.
The government may not hear much complaint. The economic bill will arrive regardless.
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Adil Mahmood is a former journalist and public policy observer.