If faced with an emergency need for $400, 41 percent of American households couldn’t easily come up with it, according to a new survey published by the Federal Reserve on Tuesday.
That’s a big improvement. In 2013, when the central bank started keeping track, half of households said they would not be able to come up with the $400.
Other statistics from the Fed’s Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households suggest that things really are getting better for most people as the economic recovery builds.
Nearly three-quarters of people say that they’re doing at least OK, up 10 percentage points from 2013. And only 7 percent of people say they are finding it difficult to get by, a number that has been cut in half in the same period.
The survey’s subjective measures of financial health track what’s been happening in the economy. Unemployment has fallen from about 7 percent to closer to 4 percent, and a host of other economic indicators have improved significantly over the past few years.
Members of Congress often cite the emergency cash statistic. Most recently, for instance, Republicans have mentioned it to promote legislation to ease regulatory burdens on banks, allowing them to extend credit to cash-strapped consumers. That legislation faces a final vote in the House on Tuesday.
The survey is based on a sample of more than 12,000 people meant to be representative of the U.S.
It includes other items of interest. For instance, to gauge how many families are affected by the opioid crisis, this year’s survey, conducted in 2017, asked people whether they personally knew someone addicted to opioids or prescription painkillers. About one-fifth of people said they do. Among whites, the share is higher, at 27 percent.
