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Newsletter
A Dollar’s Worth: Inflation Is Real
Understanding the reality of inflation can help consumers make decisions in personal finance. Learn more about inflation, how it’s measured, and how the inflation rate is calculated in the December 2021 issue of Page One Economics: Focus on Finance.
Journal Article
Savings programs associated with VITA
There are thousands of Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites across the country and more than 250 in Texas. Located at libraries, community colleges, churches and community-based organizations, these sites pop up during tax season in areas accessible to low- and moderate-income (LMI) workers.
Journal Article
Negative Sentiment toward Spending and Declining Real Incomes May Meaningfully Lower Consumption
Despite a contraction in real GDP in the first half of 2022, consumer spending has remained resilient. We examine a set of factors that have historically affected consumption growth and find that excess savings have boosted consumer spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as excess savings decline and economic relationships normalize, negative sentiment toward spending and declining real incomes may meaningfully lower consumption.
Report
What would you do with $500? Spending responses to gains, losses, news, and loans
We use survey questions about spending to investigate features of propensities to consume that are useful for distinguishing between consumption theories. Asking households about their intended spending under various scenarios, we find that 1) responses to unanticipated gains are vastly heterogeneous (either zero or substantially positive), 2) responses to losses are much larger and more widespread than responses to gains, and 3) even those with large responses to gains do not respond to news about future gains. These three findings suggest that limited access to disposable resources is an ...
Discussion Paper
Spending Down Pandemic Savings Is an “Only-in-the-U.S.” Phenomenon
Household saving soared in the United States and other high-income economies during the pandemic, as consumers cut back on spending while government policies supported incomes. More recently, saving behavior has diverged, with the U.S. saving rate dropping below its pre-pandemic average while saving rates elsewhere have remained above their pre-pandemic averages. As a result, U.S. consumers have been spending down the “excess savings” built up during the pandemic while the excess savings abroad remain untapped. This divergent behavior helps explain why U.S. GDP has returned to its ...
Working Paper
Accounting for racial wealth disparities in the United States
Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, this paper updates and extends previous research on the racial wealth gap in the United States. We explore several hypotheses that help explain differential wealth accumulation by racial groups, including the importance of receiving inheritances and other financial support from relatives and the conditions in local real estate markets. By exploring the disparities among white, black, and Hispanic families, we make new contributions to the literature. We find that observable factors account for the entire wealth gap between white and Hispanic ...
Discussion Paper
What Is the Outlook for China’s External Surplus?
The sharp slowdown in China’s property sector has reignited debate over the country’s future role as a net provider of savings to the global economy. The debate revolves around whether a sustained decline in property investment will spur a long-term increase in China’s current account surplus, given the country’s high savings rate. However, China’s rapidly aging population presents opposing forces that complicate this story. The shift of a large share of its population from working life to retirement will reduce savings supply even as a shrinking labor force will reduce investment ...
Journal Article
The Rise and Fall of Pandemic Excess Savings
U.S. households built up savings at unprecedented rates following the strong fiscal response and lower consumer spending related to the pandemic. Despite recent rapid drawdowns of those funds, estimates suggest a substantial stock of excess savings remains in the aggregate economy. Since 2020, households across all income levels have held a historically large share of savings in cash or other easily accessible forms. Estimates suggest that those funds could be available to support personal spending at least into the fourth quarter of 2023.
Journal Article
Features: Rethinking Retirement Savings
How much is enough to live comfortably in retirement? Would $30,000 a year be enough? Maybe if you live in a low-cost area, and the house is paid off. How about $15,000? It would be a stretch, at best. Yet recent census numbers indicate millions of Americans over the age of 65 must figure out how to make ends meet on these incomes. A quarter of seniors, almost 14 million retirees, live on only $15,000, while a little over half, 29 million retirees, live on only $30,000 a year. For these Americans, the prospects of a comfortable retirement appear uncertain.