Most financial advisors recommend storing three to six months of expenses in liquid assets in case of an emergency. Yet we estimate that more than half of U.S. families do not have at least three months of their non-discretionary expenses in liquid savings. We find that financial literacy is...

The Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances for 2019 provides insights into the evolution of family income and net worth since the previous time the survey was conducted in 2016. The survey shows that over the 2016–19 period, the median value of real (inflation-adjusted) family...