The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the increase in the proportion of U.S. households with financial obligations greater than 40% of income was due to mistakes or over-optimism. The proportion of households paying more than 40% of income for debt, rent, vehicle leases, property...

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors associated with changes in the proportion of households with high financial obligations ratios in the United States. The proportion of households paying more than 40% of income for debt, rent, vehicle leases, property taxes, and homeowners...

The racial/ethnic disparities of risky asset ownership were investigated. In the 2004 and 2007 Survey of Con- sumer Finances datasets, 30% of Hispanic, 36% of Black, and 65% of White households had high return invest- ments such as stocks, investment real estate, or private business assets....

This study estimates the adequacy of retirement wealth of pre-retirement households using a 1995 national sample of households. Retirement wealth is projected using planned retirement age and portfolio allocation. Retirement needs are estimated from expenditure functions, and 52% of the...

The recession that started in December 2007 was longer than any since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Household incomes dropped and unemployment rates increased to over 9%. We investigate the proportion of households having financial obligations over 40% of pretax income (having a high...

We examine household saving in the context of a prescriptive model. Using Survey of Consumer Finances data sets in the 1995-2004 period, 57% of households reported spending less than income. Many effects in the multivariate analysis are consistent with a prescriptive model. We discuss other...