The Federal Reserve Board recently published its annual Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households which details responses and takeaways from the annual Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking or SHED. I do not make these acronyms up. A lot of the time, perusing these reports feels a lot like talking to Captain Obvious. An actual line from the 2019 report reads, Health limitations, a lack of available work, and family obligations are often cited as reasons for not being fully employed.
Our government at work!
This particular topic, the economic well-being of U.S. women … umm, I mean households, is near and dear to my heart, though, and there are nuggets of insight and—dare I say it, inspiration—in the report for our own lives. Also, I like reading about these things. You could view it as an occupational hazard or … pour another cup o’ joe and enjoy your micro-vacation! Don’t judge.
Much of the report underscores many of the things I write about and recommend people do—the importance of an emergency fund, the unique financial challenges that arise from freelance work, the absurdism that is health insurance in America. That said, I did note a few things that I found … noteworthy. Below, in no particular order, are the most interesting nuggets I learned about how we all did and felt financially in 2018.
75% of adults in the U.S. indicated that they were doing at least okay.
I’m not accusing the independent Federal Reserve Board of sugar-coating the truth, but the choices we make in how we present information have consequences. Another way of reporting this exact same result is, 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. indicated that they were not doing okay financially in 2018. Ouch. Given how critical financial well-being is to—well—well-being period, you’d hope this report would’ve adopted a more urgent tone in calling out this finding.
10% of adults sold goods online, via sites such as craigslist or eBay.
I’m not sure why I found this to be exceptional given that I get great enjoyment from doing this. What? You think I know so many people that I can give away all the treasures I find at Dig & Save? I cannot. Sometimes I sell them. And the places where you can do so now are not limited to just craigslist or eBay. Pre-owned clothing is a big and growing business. From thredUP to The Real Real to Poshmark, there are now any number of places where you can buy and sell last season’s fashions, you fickle you. For the record, my selling stuff on eBay is a terrible use of my time if you measure it in take-home pay. Also for the record, take-home pay is occasionally a terrible measuring stick for the value of your time (cf. parenting).
75% of adults think it is moderately or very important to have shops and restaurants near where they live while only 48% of adults think the same of a library.
48% of adults are smart.
Net Worth or wealth is not mentioned a single time.
In fairness, the report does refer to cash or savings, specifically retirement savings, in several places, but never in the explicit sense of the impact general savings have on economic well-being, a stark and unfortunate omission for a publication entitled Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2018. Certainly, income—which gets its own chapter in the report—is an important factor, but at the end of the day, it’s how much of that income you keep year over year that determines financial well-being, a fact highlighted by the six percent of adults with an income over $100,000 who say they are not doing at least okay financially, a proportion down, in fact, from 18% in 2013.
On the flip side, 56% of adults whose family income is less than $40,000 reported doing at least okay financially in 2018. There’s that inspiration for ya!
13% of adults with a bank account reported at least one problem in accessing account funds.
Wait—isn’t that what banks do? Imagine if 13% of adults eating at a restaurant had an issue getting their food. And you wonder why I have an issue with financial institutions.