Americans Lose $165 Billion a Year to Robocalls, Fees and Bureaucracy

The annoyance economy is now a household bill big enough to rival the economies of 14 states. Groundwork Collaborative estimates that Americans lose at least $165 billion a year to robocalls, surprise junk fees, customer service delays and other routine hassles that drain time, money and patience before a single problem is solved.

The February 9 report by Groundwork policy fellow Chad Maisel and Stanford economist Neale Mahoney breaks the total into three large buckets: more than $32 billion from spam and robocalls, $90 billion from junk fees and $41 billion from health care headaches. Groundwork says Americans receive more than 130 million scam and illegal marketing calls every day and more than 20 billion spam texts each month, while time spent on the phone with customer service has risen 60% over the past two decades. The report says making cancellation harder can lift corporate revenues by more than 200%, turning frustration into a business model.

Groundwork argues that the cost is not just financial. In its account of an airline refund after a weather cancellation, one author spent an hour trying to get money back while a call line warned of a wait longer than two hours and an AI phone agent failed to finish the request. That kind of friction, the report says, is increasingly built into everyday transactions, from subscription cancellations and airline refunds to food-delivery and ticketing surcharges. The burden falls hardest on families already stretched thin, because every extra hour on hold or every opaque fee narrows the choices available at the end of the month.

Health care is one of the most expensive examples. Groundwork says Americans waste $21.6 billion a year dealing with administrative hassles in health care alone, and nearly 80% of Americans report frustration with insurance paperwork and coordination. The report treats that lost time as part of the cost, not a side effect, because hours spent tracking claims or untangling billing mistakes are hours not spent working, caring for children or handling other obligations.

The policy fight is intensifying as federal regulators continue to chase the problem. The Federal Trade Commission said consumer reports about unwanted calls fell by more than half since 2021, but it still received 1.1 million robocall complaints in fiscal 2024, including more than 170,000 tied to medical and prescription-related calls. More than 4.2 million people signed up for the Do Not Call Registry in fiscal 2024, bringing the total to more than 253 million actively registered numbers. Groundwork says the answer is stronger consumer protections, greater price transparency and fewer barriers to basic tasks, after years in which weak enforcement and opaque pricing have let irritation become profitable.