Roughly 40 million adults in the United States live with an anxiety disorder in any given year, making it the most common category of mental illness in the country. Among children and teenagers, about 11% have a current anxiety diagnosis. These numbers have climbed in recent years, and the true count is likely higher because many people with anxiety never seek a diagnosis.
Anxiety by the Numbers
The most widely cited figure comes from large national surveys that estimate about 19% of U.S. adults experienced anxiety symptoms within any two-week window, based on pre-pandemic CDC data from 2019. That same year, 8.1% of adults met the threshold for symptoms of an anxiety disorder specifically, and 10.8% showed symptoms of either anxiety or depression.
Those percentages translate to tens of millions of people. With a U.S. adult population of roughly 260 million, even the more conservative 8% figure means more than 20 million adults were experiencing clinically significant anxiety symptoms at any single point in time. The 19% figure, which captures milder symptoms too, represents closer to 50 million adults.
Among adolescents aged 13 to 18, lifetime prevalence is even higher. National survey data shows that about 31.9% of teenagers will meet criteria for an anxiety disorder at some point during adolescence, though only 8.3% of those cases involve severe impairment. For younger children (ages 3 to 17), CDC data from 2022 to 2023 puts the rate of currently diagnosed anxiety at 11%.
Women Are Nearly Twice as Likely to Be Affected
Anxiety disorders are not distributed evenly across the population. Women are significantly more affected than men at every level of severity. In CDC survey data, 19% of women reported anxiety symptoms compared to 11.9% of men. Women were also more likely to experience moderate or severe symptoms: 3.5% of women reported severe anxiety versus 1.9% of men.
This gender gap shows up early. Among adolescents, 38% of girls met criteria for an anxiety disorder compared to 26.1% of boys. Researchers attribute part of this difference to hormonal factors and part to differences in how boys and girls are socialized around expressing distress, though neither explanation fully accounts for the gap.
Differences Across Race and Ethnicity
White adults reported the highest overall rate of anxiety symptoms at 16.5%, followed by Black adults (14.6%) and Hispanic adults (14.5%). Asian adults had the lowest reported rate at 8.5%. These numbers come from self-reported symptom surveys, which means they reflect who reports anxiety, not necessarily who experiences it. Cultural differences in how people describe emotional distress, comfort with mental health screening tools, and access to diagnosis all influence these figures.
The pattern held across severity levels. White adults were most likely to report mild symptoms (10.1%), while Asian adults were the least likely to report moderate or severe symptoms (1.5% for each category).
Anxiety in Children Is Rising Fast
The 11% prevalence rate among children ages 3 to 17 is a notable increase from historical baselines. Anxiety rates climb steeply with age during childhood: only 2.3% of children ages 3 to 5 have a diagnosed anxiety disorder, compared to 9.2% of children ages 6 to 11 and 16% of adolescents ages 12 to 17.
That steep jump between elementary and middle school age aligns with what clinicians observe. Social pressures intensify, academic demands increase, and puberty introduces new emotional and physiological complexity. Girls are more affected than boys even at young ages, with 12% of girls diagnosed compared to 9% of boys in the 3 to 17 age range.
What Anxiety Costs the Country
Anxiety disorders carry a substantial economic burden. Medical spending to treat anxiety and mood disorders combined totaled $36.8 billion in 2007, the most recent year with comprehensive federal data on this specific question. Half of that spending, about $18.4 billion, went to prescription medications. The average person being treated for anxiety or a mood disorder spent $1,374 per year on care, split between medication costs (averaging $763 per person) and office visits ($646 per person). Adjusted for inflation and population growth, current costs are considerably higher.
Those figures capture only direct medical spending. They don’t include lost productivity from missed work, reduced job performance, or the downstream effects of untreated anxiety on physical health conditions like heart disease and chronic pain, which generate their own costs.
Many People With Anxiety Go Untreated
Despite being highly treatable, anxiety disorders have one of the largest gaps between prevalence and treatment of any medical condition. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America estimates that only about 36% of people with an anxiety disorder receive treatment. That means roughly two out of every three Americans living with clinical anxiety are managing it without professional help.
Barriers include cost, limited access to therapists (particularly in rural areas), stigma, and the simple fact that many people with anxiety don’t recognize their experience as a diagnosable condition. Persistent worry, avoidance of social situations, or recurring panic episodes can feel like personality traits rather than symptoms. For children, the gap is even more concerning because anxiety in young people often looks like behavioral problems or school refusal rather than the worry and dread adults associate with the word “anxiety.”