scholarly journals Financial Profiles of Workers Most Vulnerable to Coronavirus-Related Earnings Loss in the Spring of 2020

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (093) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Brooke Helppie-McFall ◽  
◽  
Joanne W. Hsu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
People Of Color ◽  
Income Shocks ◽  
Survey Of Consumer Finances ◽  
Consumer Finances ◽  
Earnings Losses ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Wage Earners

In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and related shutdowns had huge effects on unemployment. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we describe the financial profiles of US families whose workers were most vulnerable to coronavirus-related earnings losses in the spring of 2020, based on whether a particular worker was deemed "essential" and whether a worker's job could be conducted remotely. We use descriptive analytic techniques to examine how families' baseline financial situations would allow them to weather COVID-shutdown-related earnings losses. We find that families with non-teleworkable workers who were most vulnerable to layoff also had both demographic and financial profiles that are associated with greater vulnerability to income shocks: non-teleworkable families were more likely to be people of color and single wage-earners, and also to have less savings. The median non-teleworkable family, whether in non-essential or essential occupations, held only three weeks of income in savings, underscoring the importance of policy measures to blunt the financial effect of the COVID crisis.

scholarly journals Inequality and market concentration, when shareholding is more skewed than consumption

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 550-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Gans ◽  
Andrew Leigh ◽  
Martin Schmalz ◽  
Adam Triggs
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Relative Distribution ◽  
Consumer Expenditure ◽  
Survey Of Consumer Finances ◽  
Consumer Expenditure Survey ◽  
Consumer Finances ◽  
Equity Ownership ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

AbstractEconomic theory suggests that monopoly prices hurt consumers but benefit shareholders. But in a world where individuals or households can be both consumers and shareholders, the impact of market power on inequality depends in part on the relative distribution of consumption and corporate equity ownership across individuals or households. The paper calculates this distribution for the United States, using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances and the Consumer Expenditure Survey, spanning nearly three decades from 1989 to 2016. In 2016, the top 20 per cent consumed approximately as much as the bottom 60 per cent, but had 15 times as much corporate equity. Because ownership is more skewed than consumption, increased mark-ups increase inequality. Moreover, over time, corporate equity has become even more skewed relative to consumption.

scholarly journals Invest As I Say, Not As I Do? Gender Dif-ferences In Financial Risk Preferences

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Ammon Jianakoplos
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Asset Allocation ◽  
Financial Risk ◽  
Risk Preferences ◽  
Financial Risks ◽  
Financial Assets ◽  
Survey Of Consumer Finances ◽  
Risky Assets ◽  
Consumer Finances ◽  
Using Data

This paper examines gender differences in stated versus observed financial risk preferences. The responses of women versus men to a question regarding financial risk preferences are compared to the proportion of risky assets held in their portfolios using data from the 1995 Survey of Consumer Finances. The data show that women are more likely to express an unwillingness to take financial risks. Stated financial risk preferences are found to be consistent with observed risk preferences at the ordinal, but not the quantitative, level. Contradicting their stated risk preferences, risky assets constitute, on average, one-third of the financial assets of households that indicate they are unwilling to take any financial risks. Financial planners and advisers frequently use a clients expressed willingness to take on risk as an important determinant in asset allocation recommendations. Consistent gender differences in these responses, in addition to inconsistencies between the clients stated risk preferences and observed portfolio allocation, may lead advisers to make inappropriate recommendations.

scholarly journals Impact of Economic Shocks on Cumulative Advantage Processes: Recession, Recovery, and Trajectories of Inequality

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 508-508
Author(s):  
Stephen Crystal
Keyword(s):  
Potential Role ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Survey Of Consumer Finances ◽  
Subsequent Recovery ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Consumer Finances ◽  
Age Cohort ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Life Course

Abstract This study compares the effect of the 2008 recession and subsequent recovery across generational cohorts by evaluating age-cohort trajectories of income inequality. Using data from the 2007 to 2016 waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances, we examine the trajectory of inequality for the overall population and by cohort in years spanning the Great Recession and subsequent recovery. We find that increases in per-capita income and wealth observed at the population-level during the recovery were not reflected among households below the median, leading to increasing inequality. Within cohorts, we observe growing inequality within cohorts in their primary working years. Findings are consistent with a model of integrative cumulative dis/ advantage, which predicts increasing within-cohort inequality over the life course influenced both by persistent micro- and macro-level processes of increasing heterogeneity. Our analyses highlight the potential role of extreme business cycle fluctuations, booms and busts, to exacerbate this underlying process.

scholarly journals Employer-Provided Health Insurance and Retirement Behavior

ILR Review ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Gustman ◽  
Thomas L. Steinmeier
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Private Health Insurance ◽  
Health Benefits ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Survey Of Consumer Finances ◽  
Consumer Finances ◽  
National Medical ◽  
Retirement Behavior ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Cost

Using data from the 1969–79 Retirement History Study, the 1977 National Medical Care Expenditure Survey, the 1983–86 Survey of Consumer Finances, and the 1988 Current Population Survey, the authors analyze, with a structural retirement model, the effect on retirement of employer-provided health benefits. Such benefits, they find, tend to delay retirement until the age of eligibility and afterward to accelerate it. The net effect is small: employer-provided health benefits lowered male retirement age by only about 1.3 months. Valuing health benefits at the price of private health insurance to unaffiliated men, rather than at the cost to employers, increases the effect. Ignoring retiree health benefits in retirement models creates only a small bias.

scholarly journals Signaling Status: The Impact of Relative Income on Household Consumption and Financial Decisions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse Bricker ◽  
Jacob Krimmel ◽  
Rodney Ramcharan
Keyword(s):  
Household Consumption ◽  
High Status ◽  
County Level ◽  
Survey Of Consumer Finances ◽  
Financial Decisions ◽  
Consumer Finances ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Status Goods ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact

This paper investigates the importance of status in household consumption and credit decisions using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances linked to tract-level data in the American Community Survey. We find that relatively richer households in the census tract use more debt and spend more on high-status cars. Also, county-level evidence shows that the consumption of high-status cars is higher in more unequal counties. These results suggest that greater income heterogeneity might shape household consumption and credit decisions, as relatively richer households signal their higher status to their neighbors through the consumption of visible status goods. This paper was accepted by Tomasz Piskorski, finance.

scholarly journals Use of Financial Planners and Portfolio Performance

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shan Lei ◽  
Rui Yao
Keyword(s):  
Financial Planning ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Potential Effect ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Portfolio Performance ◽  
Survey Of Consumer Finances ◽  
Consumer Finances ◽  
Financial Planners ◽  
Household Portfolio ◽  
Using Data

Using data from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances, this study evaluates the potential effect of using financial planners on household portfolio performance, which was measured by Sharpe Ratio. Results revealed that households that reported using financial planners demonstrated better portfolio performance than those that did not. This lends empirical support to claims that professional financial planning services provide value to clients. Implications for investors, financial planning professionals, and researchers are discussed. Considering the direct relation between wealth accumulation and portfolio performance, financial planners should explore ways in which to work with those with limited resources to help them realize the benefits of using financial planners and improve their portfolio performance as a result.

1963 Survey of Consumer Finances.

1965 ◽  
Vol 60 (309) ◽  
pp. 370
Author(s):  
James C. Byrnes ◽  
George Katona ◽  
Charles A. Lininger ◽  
Eva Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Survey Of Consumer Finances ◽  
Consumer Finances

The Risk Tolerance Measure in the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances: New, But Is It Improved?

2021 ◽  
pp. JFCP-19-00022
Author(s):  
Kyoung Tae Kim ◽  
Sherman D. Hanna ◽  
Dongyue Ying
Keyword(s):  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Risk Tolerance ◽  
Stock Ownership ◽  
Survey Of Consumer Finances ◽  
Consumer Finances ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Complex Patterns ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Different Levels

The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) has included a 4-level risk tolerance measure since 1983. In 2016, the SCF also included an 11-level risk tolerance measure. We compare the two measures, and develop suggestions for using the new measure. While the new measure is seemingly simpler than the old measure, we demonstrate that it does not have a monotonic relationship with owning stock assets, with a pattern similar to the relationship of the old measure to stock ownership. We also identify complex patterns of factors related to different levels of the new measure, for instance education has a negative relationship at one level but positive at another level. Those using the new measure should consider the complex patterns we demonstrate.

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