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Working Paper
Has COVID Changed Consumer Payment Behavior?
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused large changes in consumer spending, including how people make their payments. We use data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. consumers collected before COVID in 2018 and 2019 and during COVID in 2020 to analyze changes in consumer payment behavior during the pandemic. We find that compared with their payment behavior in 2019, consumers had shifted some of their purchases from in person to online by fall 2020, significantly lowered their use of cash for purchases, and shifted their person-to-person (P2P) payments away from paper (cash and checks). ...
Report
Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2019
This report describes the responses to the 2019 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED) as well as responses to a follow-up survey conducted in April 2020. The Federal Reserve Board has fielded this survey each fall since 2013 to understand the wide range of financial challenges and opportunities facing families in the United States.
Discussion Paper
Question design and the gender gap in financial literacy
Many surveys have measured people's financial literacy with a standard set of questions covering interest, inflation, and investment diversification. Results from these surveys have consistently shown that women are less likely than men to answer the financial literacy questions correctly – the so-called financial literacy gender gap.
Report
Consumers and Mobile Finance Services 2015
Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. The survey examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions. This report presents findings from the 2014 survey, fielded in December, which focused ...
Report
Consumers and Mobile Financial Services 2015
Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. The survey examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions. This report presents findings from the 2014 survey, fielded in December, which focused ...
Report
Consumers and Mobile Finance Services 2016
Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. The survey examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions. This report presents findings from the 2014 survey, fielded in December, which focused ...
Report
Update on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households: July 2020 Results
In March 2020, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic altered the financial landscape for many American families. Recognizing the unprecedented financial disruptions caused by the pandemic, the Federal Reserve conducted a pair of supplemental surveys to monitor the financial well-being of U.S. households. The first was fielded in April 2020, and the results were described in the Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2019, Featuring Supplemental Data from April 2020. This report describes the responses to the second supplemental survey, fielded in July 2020. The combined results ...