Are households cutting back on spending, and if so, where?

Debt is bouncing back as consumers borrow more to pay today's higher prices. So, how has consumer debt trended in recent months?

Joanne Hsu talks about the widely followed Surveys of Consumers and the information they provide on inflation expectations. Hsu is director of the surveys and a research associate professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. She was a panelist at the "Demystifying Inflation" session of the Richmond Fed's District Dialogues event series on November 7, 2022.

Theory predicts that when households' incomes become more volatile, they may save more, work more, or reduce their holdings of risky assets to compensate for their increased risk.

Examining how nominal income and spending behaved during the months surrounding past peaks in inflation may yield insights into the current bout of high inflation.

Many assume that inflation affects all households the same. But that doesn't appear to be true.

The impact of the recent rise in prices on households and how people perceive future price increases may vary according to income, according to recent research.

Standard life-cycle models of portfolio choice suggest that individuals should participate in the stock market throughout their lives. Yet the data show that this is not typically the case early in life.

Purchases of durable goods have been moderating after experiencing a surge during the pandemic. But is this due to falling demand or constrained supplies?

Do payday loan regulations help or harm consumer welfare? How many firms close due to financial market inefficiencies? These were among questions addressed at a recent research workshop.

Americans have spent less and saved more during most of the COVID-19 pandemic. What will happen to these accumulated savings is an open question.

A decreasing-rate mortgage wouldn't increase its interest rate, but would decline when rates dropped, potentially saving significant refinance costs.

Household savings have been elevated since the start of the pandemic, especially among high-income households. This is expected to fuel the seasonal burst of demand ahead of the holidays.

Prepping for medical expenses is more important for singles, while leaving bequests is more important for couples.

How consumers respond to the ongoing Delta variant outbreak has been a key question facing the economy. Fortunately, consumer spending is holding up better than sentiment surveys would have suggested.

Household spending fell sharply, especially on services, during the early days of the pandemic. That story is expected to change significantly as the recovery continues.

Recent legislation has increased emergency rental assistance for renters struggling due to the pandemic, but efficient disbursement has been a challenge in many states.

While the savings of retired singles tend to fall with age, those of retired couples tend to rise. We estimate a rich model of retired singles and couples with bequest motives and uncertain longevity and medical expenses.

John Bailey Jones shares his work on the medical spending of the elderly and other financial decisions people make as they age.

Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin discusses the recent increase in personal savings and the implications for future spending.

Loan forbearance and other debt relief measures have been part of the effort to help struggling households and businesses.

The goal of this paper is to show that household-level financial distress (FD) varies greatly, meaning there is unequal exposure to macroeconomic risk, and that FD can increase macroeconomic vulnerability.

This gallery offers a record of some of the unprecedented economic changes that Americans experienced at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors forecast the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on loan delinquency rates under three scenarios for unemployment and house price movements.

President Tom Barkin wrote about economic aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Based on administrative data from Statistics Norway, we find economically significant shifts in households' financial portfolios around individual structural breaks in labor-income volatility.

Confidence in the future, or the lack of it, is a key driver of consumer and business spending and investment decisions. For economic policymakers, then, the atmosphere of uncertainty creates new challenges in understanding the environment and anticipating the economy's path.

Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin spoke July 11, 2019, at the Global Interdependence Center’s Rocky Mountain Economic Summit.

Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin spoke May 15, 2019, to the New York Association for Business Economics.

Retirees face considerable medical expenses during their remaining lives. Model simulations suggest that although a large amount of that spending can be predicted — based on attributes such as income, health, and marital status — there remains significant dispersion.

Household financial distress is pervasive. Is this pattern driven by a small share of individuals experiencing persistent distress, by the majority facing more occasional distress, or something in between? Recent research indicates that over a lifetime, financial distress is unlikely for most but very persistent for some.

Are fears of a "bubble" in auto lending overstated?

Overall, the government pays more for lower-income individuals than higher-income individuals, but Medicaid is not just a program for the young and the poor. It provides substantial benefits to older adults with higher incomes as well.

Many worry that the Great Recession and mounting student debt have stunted millennials' financial development

The classical theory of household portfolio allocation finds that the share of household wealth invested in risky assets is independent of the level of household wealth. However, this prediction is at odds with empirical observations.

Reducing excessive household indebtedness would reduce the likelihood of costly and burdensome workouts when borrowers get in trouble. Regardless of the exact size of the effect, it seems clear that reducing the tax favoritism for debt would help reduce the negative effects of credit booms and busts.

Are investors ignoring financial advice to their detriment? Research by a number of economists suggests otherwise. Using more detailed lifecycle models, they find that young investors may be considering a number of risk factors not captured by simple investment rules of thumb.

A great uncertainty in the labor market--high unemployment risk, frequent job turnovers, and an unknown career path--prevents young workers from taking too much risk in the financial market. As labor-market uncertainty is resolved over time, workers start taking more risk in their financial portfolios.

Using three years of transactions data from a discount retailer with thousands of stores, we study payment variation along three dimensions: transaction size and location; weekly and monthly frequencies; and longer time horizons.

One suggested hypothesis for the dramatic rise in household borrowing that preceded the financial crisis is that low-income households increased their demand for credit to finance higher consumption expenditures in order to "keep up" with higher-income households.

Recent research suggests that young borrowers are actually among the least likely to experience a serious credit card default. One reason why people obtain credit cards early in life may be to build a strong credit history.

Young borrowers are the least experienced financially and, conventionally, thought to be most prone to financial mistakes. We study the relationship between age and financial problems related to credit cards.

This issue directs readers to their credit report and provides a road map for resolving credit report errors.

Grade Level: College, Adult
Resource Type: Publication

This Economic Brief highlights the impact of non-occupant-owner mortgages on the housing crisis.