Timed to Financial Literacy Month, the “CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey,” conducted in partnership with Momentive, reveals Americans’ confidence in the banking system, the impact of inflation, personal finance stresses and more
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. and SAN MATEO, CA, April 11, 2023 – CNBC, First in Business Worldwide, and Momentive, maker of SurveyMonkey, today announced the results of CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey in honor of Financial Literacy Month.
The survey, which polled over 4,000 adults in the U.S., finds that most Americans are not prepared with an emergency fund if any financial troubles arise. More than half of Americans (53%) say they do not have an emergency fund, while forty percent of those who do have less than $10,000. Seniors are more likely than younger adults to have an emergency fund with sixty-eight percent of Americans who are 65 or older saying they have one compared to almost a third of Americans who are 18-34 saying they do (32%). Men are also more likely than women to have an emergency fund (50% of men versus 41% of women).
The survey also highlights that inflation continues to be top of mind for most Americans with over half of them (59%) saying inflation contributes to their financial stress, and this statistic is similar across every demographic. Seven in 10 Americans (70%) report being stressed about their personal finances, with concern higher among young adults ages 18-34 (75%) and those 35-64 (73%) than those 65 and older (54%). More than half of Americans (52%) say they are more stressed about their finances now than they were before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, while twenty percent say they are less stressed. Also, a majority of Americans (58%) consider themselves to be “living paycheck to paycheck,” including 78% of those with household incomes under $50,000, 61% with household incomes of $50K-$99,999, and 32% of those with household incomes of $100,000 or more.
“In times of economic uncertainty, keeping a pulse on personal financial confidence is essential,” says Laura Wronski, Director of Research at Momentive. “Financial stress that might seem small on the individual level can roll up to create a larger crisis of confidence at the national level, and leaders can only act on this when they understand those underlying drivers.”
Additional key findings from the CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey include:
Gender divide over financial stresses:
- Men and women have different levels of stress related to their personal finances; 34% of women say they are “very stressed” about their personal finances versus 26% of men.
- Women are more likely than men to say they are “living paycheck to paycheck” (63% vs. 54%).
Inflation and other financial stressors impacting Americans:
- Inflation is the top financial stressor for whites (64%), Hispanics (55%), and Asians (55%), but among Blacks it is tied with “lack of savings” for the top spot (42% each).
- Additional financial stressors that were cited in the survey include economy-wide instability (43%), interest rates (36%), lack of savings (35%), medical/health care bills (27%), aging (26%), credit card debt (23%), layoffs/loss of income (18%), and student loans (14%). Just 5% of Americans could not point to a single financial stressor.
- People living paycheck to paycheck have a magnified set of financial stressors than everyone else: they are 3.5 times as likely to say “lack of savings” is a source of stress (50% vs. 14%), 3 times as likely to say credit card debt is a source of stress (33% vs. 10%), twice as likely to say layoffs (24% vs. 10%) are a source of stress, and 1.5 times as likely to say medical/health care bills (32% vs. 20%) or student loans (17% vs. 10%) are a source of stress.
More on Americans’ confidence after the recent banking crisis:
- Slightly more than half of the country (54%) expresses confidence in America’s banking system, with just 13% saying they are “very confident.”
- People in the U.S. with household incomes of $100,000 or more are the most apt to express confidence in the banking system.
- Democrats (62%) are more confident in the banking system than Republicans (49%) or Independents (47%).
CNBC Senior Personal Finance Correspondent Sharon Epperson will reveal the results of the CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey today, Tuesday, April 11th throughout the network’s Business Day programming. For more information on the survey including the full results, methodology and in-depth articles, go to CNBC’s new digital hub, cnbc.com/yourmoney, and https://www.momentive.ai/en/blog/cnbc-financial-literacy-2023/. Sharon Epperson’s story about the results can also be found here:
CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey is part of CNBC’s new financial education initiative, CNBC Your Money, that was announced last week which is dedicated to helping people manage, grow and protect their money so they can live ambitiously. The new initiative, which is an extension of the CNBC Your Money editorial brand, further amplifies the organization’s content, helps to meet the needs of a core but underserved audience segment. Through access and advocacy, the initiative educates people about their personal finances across every life stage from school age to retirement.
Today, CNBC will also host the Women & Wealth virtual event at 1pm ET, which will highlight results from the survey. The first ever Women & Wealth forum will touch on how women are reevaluating their relationship with money and explore ways they can increase their income, save for the future and make the most out of current opportunities. Speakers include Personal Finance Expert and Author Suze Orman, Redefining Wealth Founder Patrice Washington and Sun Group Wealth Partners Founding Partner & CNBC FA Council Member Winnie Sun, among others. Click here to register.
Methodology:
The CNBC|Momentive online poll was conducted March 27-31, 2023 among a national sample of 4,336 adults in the U.S. Respondents for this survey were selected from the more than 2 million people who take surveys on the Momentive platform each day. The modeled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 2.0 percentage points. Data have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States age 18 and over.
For more information contact:
CNBC
Jennifer Dauble
201-735-4721
CNBC
Stephanie Hirlemann
201-397-2838
Momentive
About CNBC:
CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business content consumed by more than 355 million people per month across all platforms. The network’s 14 live hours a day of business programming in North America (weekdays from 5:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC’s global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of new reality programming, CNBC’s highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.
CNBC also offers content through its vast portfolio of digital products such as: CNBC.com, which provides real-time financial market news and information to CNBC’s investor audience; CNBC Make It, a digital destination focused on making you smarter about how you earn, save and spend your money; CNBC PRO, a premium service that provides in-depth access to Wall Street; a suite of CNBC mobile apps for iOS and Android devices; Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple Siri voice interfaces; and streaming services including Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Samsung Smart TVs. To learn more, visit https://www.cnbc.com/digital-products/.
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About Momentive:
Momentive (NASDAQ: MNTV), maker of SurveyMonkey, empowers people with the insights they need to make business decisions with speed and confidence. Our fast, intuitive experience and insights management solutions connect millions of users at more than 330,000 organizations worldwide with AI-powered technology and up-to-the-minute insights, so they can shape what’s next for their products, industries, customers, employees, and the market. Ultimately, our vision is to raise the bar for human experiences by amplifying individual voices. Learn more at momentive.ai.
