Updated: April 11, 2023 | By Charlotte Principato and Caroline Smith
Each month Morning Consult polls at least 2,200 U.S. adults about how they view their personal financial situations and how this perception impacts their ability to feel secure and enjoy freedom of choice. This data is incorporated into Morning Consult’s Financial Well-Being Scale, modeled after a scale by the same name from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). You can learn more about Morning Consult’s scale in our methodology below.
How to read this data: The Financial Well-Being scores reflect the extent to which a person’s financial situation provides them with security and freedom of choice. Consumers’ Financial Well-Being scores can change over time, and while some score shifts may appear small, even the slightest change can be meaningful. For example, according to the CFPB, an individual’s 1-point month-over-month increase is associated with a $15,000 increase in household income, a five-year age increase or a 20-point credit score hike.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
U.S. adults’ financial well-being scores are stable but relatively low. Inflation, rising interest rates and general uncertainty in the economy continue to weigh on consumers’ feelings of financial security. In March, the financial well-being score for the average U.S. adult was 49.41, mostly constant from February (49.34) and nearly half a point lower than in March 2022 (49.83).
Despite steady financial well-being scores, many adults are falling behind on their finances. Three in 10 U.S. adults said in March that they are “always” or “often” behind on their finances, a 7-percentage-point increase year over year. And when celebrations and special events roll around, many aren’t able to afford gifts: 35% of U.S. adults said that giving a gift would put a strain on their finances for the month, a 7-point increase from March 2022.
As they enter their peak earning years, millennials’ unexpected expense tolerance has increased. The share of millennials who say they could handle a major unexpected expense “completely” or “very well” has grown since 2022. Nearly 3 in 10 (29%) said in March that they could handle a surprise expense, compared with fewer than 2 in 10 (18%) at the same time last year.
KEY DEMOGRAPHICS
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CONTROL OVER FINANCES
Shares who say the above phrase describes them “always” or “often”
Shares who say the above phrase describes them “always” or “often”
FINANCIAL FREEDOM
Shares who say the above phrase describes them “completely” or “very well”
CAPACITY TO ABSORB A FINANCIAL SHOCK
Shares who say the above phrase describes them “completely” or “very well”
ON TRACK TO MEET GOALS
Shares who say the above phrase describes them “completely” or “very well”
ABOUT
Methodology
Morning Consult surveys at least 2,200 U.S. adults every month on their financial health, well-being, habits and attitudes. To determine overall financial well-being, Morning Consult replicated the CFPB’s Financial Well-Being Scale and scoring methodology.
The CFPB created its Financial Well-Being Scale in 2015 for the purpose of allowing “practitioners and researchers to accurately and consistently quantify, and therefore observe, something that the respondent already has a sense of — the extent to which their financial situation and the financial capability that they have developed provide them with security and freedom of choice.” The scale includes 10 questions for gauging present and future security and freedom of choice, touching on consumers’ control over their finances, their capacity to absorb financial shocks and their trajectory to meet their financial goals.
The 10 questions were selected by the CFPB through cognitive testing, factor analysis and psychometric testing of large populations. The score used for the Financial Well-Being Scale is based on Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis, a statistical method that provides a more precise measure than a summary score.
The IRT-based scoring method allows researchers to give precise and consistent estimates for the aspects of financial well-being that have traditionally been hard to quantify, including feelings of empowerment, confidence and satisfaction. Scores can be calculated via a two-step process. First, the respondent’s self-assessment is converted to a zero-to-four scale; second, a lookup table is used to convert each total response value to the Financial Well-Being Scale based on the respondent’s age group.
On April 1, 2022, Morning Consult updated its general population weighting targets for the United States to be more representative of the most recent population data. This change has slightly and not meaningfully altered some historical data in this tracker.
About Morning Consult
Morning Consult is a global decision intelligence company changing how modern leaders make smarter, faster, better decisions. The company pairs its proprietary high-frequency data with applied artificial intelligence to better inform decisions on what people think and how they will act. Learn more at morningconsult.com
About the author
Charlotte Principato is the financial services analyst on the Industry Intelligence team, where she conducts research, authors analyst notes and advises leaders in the financial services industry on how to apply insights to make better business decisions.
Caroline Smith is a manager of financial services intelligence at Morning Consult, where she analyzes high-frequency data to help the company deliver real-time insights to the financial services sector.
Email press@morningconsult.com to speak with a member of the Morning Consult team.
Special thanks also to Sam Hughes; Laura Maxwell, Ph.D.; Rachel Venaglia, Ph.D.; Samantha Elbouez and Sara Wickersham for their assistance with this project.