Research Paper

U.S. Financial Health Pulse: 2020 Trends Report

Discover key findings from the 2020 U.S. Financial Health Pulse regarding Americans’ financial health, including profound disparities across race and ethnicity.

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By Andrew Dunn, Helen Robb, Necati Celik, Ph.D., Thea Garon

Program:

Financial Health Pulse
Category:

Measurement

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

How has financial health changed against the backdrop of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic? The U.S. Financial Health Pulse: 2020 Trends Report offers rich insights about this unique moment in time, highlighting changes in financial health and profound disparities across race, income, and gender.

Top Takeaways

Key findings from the 2020 U.S. Financial Health Pulse include:

Overall financial health in America has improved since 2019, but gains may be temporary.

More than two-thirds of people in America (167 million people) are not Financially Healthy.

Financial health disparities have widened by race and income, and persisted across gender.

Black Americans, people with low incomes, and women are bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 crisis.

Data Spotlight

New Pulse data from August 2020 reveals profound disparities in financial health across race and ethnicity.

Our Supporters

The U.S. Financial Health Pulse is made possible through a founding partnership with Flourish, a venture of The Omidyar Group. Additional support is provided by MetLife Foundation, a founding sponsor of our financial health work, and AARP.

The Financial Health Network is partnering with the University of Southern California Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research to field the study to its online panel, the Understanding America Study.

Study participants who agree to share their transactional and account data use Plaid’s data connectivity services to authorize their data for analysis.

Written by

Andrew Dunn

Senior Manager, Data
Helen Robb

Director, Product Management

H&R Block
Necati Celik, Ph.D.

Manager, Research

Financial Health Network
Thea Garon

Senior Director, Research