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Working Paper
The COVID-19 Pandemic and Family Economic Well-being: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances
The COVID-19 pandemic caused severe disruptions to the U.S. labor market and economic activity. We establish connections between family experiences of the pandemic, their income under normal conditions, and their later economic well-being using the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances. By their interview, one-third of families experienced net employment declines, one-third had teleworked, and one-fifth had significant COVID-19-related health events. These experiences strongly reflected families’ positions in the income distribution, with lower-income families bearing the brunt. They also ...
Discussion Paper
Heterogeneity in the Marginal Propensity to Consume among U.S. Households
Precise estimates of marginal propensities to consume (MPCs) are central to understanding economic activity and the effects of economic shocks on households. However, the literature does not yield a consensus on either an aggregate MPC or the extent to which MPCs vary across the population.
Discussion Paper
Measuring Spending in the Survey of Consumer Finances
The United States has long lacked comprehensive household spending data across all types of households. Data sources whose primary purpose is to measure spending routinely miss the highest-income and wealthiest households (Bee, Meyer, and Sullivan, 2015; Sabelhaus, Johnson, Ash, Swanson, Garner, Greenlees, and Henderson, 2015; Pfeffer, Schoeni, Kennickell, and Andreski, 2016), while data sources that cover the full distribution of income and wealth lack comprehensive spending measures (Attanasio and Pistaferri, 2016; Fisher, Johnson, Smeeding, and Thompson, 2022).
Discussion Paper
Informal Support Networks in the Survey of Consumer Finances
Informal support networks, the interpersonal connections through which families provide or receive financial and practical assistance, constitute a critical but often invisible component of the U.S. economy. These networks can serve many of the same functions as wealth: shaping key economic decisions around saving, spending, and labor supply and providing an important buffer against adverse shocks (McGarry 2016; Bergeot et al., 2025).