Survey on Financial Health

What's the connection between income and the ability to build wealth and trust? NeighborWorks America's survey focuses on financial health, revealing a sizable gap in trust and financial stability for lower-income households and women. View NeighborWorks' press release and read the article "Taking a closer look at the 'financial stability gap' published by MortgagePoint.

Financial optimism varies widely based on access to financial tools and resources

• Optimism about building integenerational wealth could come down to which resources are being used.
  • Adults who use tools such as a financial coach, planner/advisor or accountant are between 29 and 39 percentage points more likely to be optimistic about their ability to generate and pass along wealth than those who don't.
  • Those who use apps, spreadsheets or documents to manage their credit card debt or help make budgeting decisions are also more likely to express optimism about passing down wealth than those who don't.
• Women, older adults and those in rural communities are far less likely to use financial tools and resources compared to their male, younger and urban or suburban counterparts.
  • Financial resources are underutilized across the board. However, there are disparities between men and women as well as age groups and community types when it comes to use of financial tools and resources.
  • Only 5% of women use a financial coach. This is in sharp contrast to men, 17% of whom use a financial coach.
  • Men were also more likely to track their spending than women. The data showed that 34% of men and 19% of women used budgeting apps. When it came to documents/spreadsheets to track spending, men were more likely than women to use those, too. The data showed that 35% of men and 23% of women used documents/spreadsheets to track their spending.
  • Younger adults, ages 18-34 (20%) are using financial coaches at a higher rate than any other age group. They're five times more times as likely to use a financial coach than those 65+ (4%), and significantly more likely than those ages 35-44 (12%) and 45-64 (7%).
  • Younger adults are also using budgeting/spending documents at double the rate of those 65+ (19%). They're also significantly more likely to use these than those ages 35-44 (33%) and 45-64 (24%).
  • Adults in urban (33%) and suburban (30%) communities are more likely than rural adults (22%) to use these resources.

Findings: Younger and lower-income adults are having a harder time managing their finances

• Despite high optimism about building and passing down wealth in the future, younger adults are having a harder time managing their finances in the present.
  • Compared to older adults, younger adults are less likely to say they’re able to handle different forms of debt, and more likely to have borrowed money from friends or family in the past 12 months to cover an unexpected expense than older adults.
  • Despite signs of difficulty in the present, 61% of adults ages 18-34 are optimistic about their ability to create and pass along wealth to younger generations, the highest percentage among all age groups.
• Struggles persist for lower-income adults and those who have trouble covering regular expenses or feel they can’t save for the future.
  • Less than half of those earning <$50k annually (42%), or those who describe themselves as financially insecure (27%) or stable (45%) feel optimistic about building intergenerational wealth.
  • Only 44% of those earning <$50k annually agree that they can keep up with changes and developments in financial tools and services.

Findings: With increasingly common and complex financial scams, connecting people to trustworthy sources of financial information presents a challenge

• Increasing trust in legitimate financial information sources is important for younger and lower-income adults.
  • Younger adults, who are most likely to know someone who’s been scammed, are also more likely to trust their friends and family members, as well as social media, for financial advice or guidance than older adults.
  • Lower-income adults tend to be less trustworthy of each tested source of financial information compared to higher-income adults, highlighting the need to increase access and trust in financial information and resources across the board for this population.
• The share of adults who have been scammed or know someone who’s been scammed is less than a majority, but still substantial.
  • Two-in-five adults (43%) say they know someone who’s been the victim of a scam, and one-third (32%) say they themselves have been scammed.
  • Adults ages 18-34 (50%) are the age group most likely to know someone who’s been the victim of a scam.
  • A majority of adults believe they’ll be targeted by a scam at some point in the future through channels such as their personal email (62%), phone (61%), social media platforms (60%), text/SMS (57%) and messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (54%).

Methodology
This poll was conducted between March 19-22, 2024 among a sample of 2,202 adults. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of adults based on age, gender, race, educational attainment, region, gender by age, and race by educational attainment. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.