Reports on Money

Reports are listed in reverse chronological order.

Home for the Holidays... and Every Other Day: Recession Brings Many Young Adults Back to the Nest
24 Nov 09 The journey home for Thanksgiving won't be quite so far this year for many young adults. Instead of traveling across country or across town, many grown sons and daughters will be coming to dinner from their old bedroom down the hall, which now doubles as their recession-era refuge.

The Harried Life of the Working Mother
1 Oct 09 Women now make up almost half of the U.S. labor force, up from 38% in 1970. The public approves of this trend, but the change has come with a cost for many women -– particularly working mothers of young children, who feel the tug of family responsibility much more acutely than do working fathers, according to a Pew Social & Demographic Trends nationwide survey. Most working moms would prefer to work part time, but relatively few do. About four in ten working moms say they always feel rushed, compared with about a quarter of working dads and stay-at-home moms.

Black-White Conflict Isn’t Society's Largest : The Public Assesses Social Divisions
24 Sep 09 It may surprise anyone who has been following the charges of racism that have flared up during the debate over President Obama’s health care proposals, but the American public doesn’t see race as the source of the strongest social conflict in the country today. That dubious distinction belongs instead to conflicts between immigrants and the native born, and also to conflicts between rich people and poor people.

Take this Job and Love It: Job Satisfaction Highest Among the Self-Employed
17 Sep 09 Frustrated with your job? You might consider working for yourself. Self-employed adults are significantly more satisfied with their jobs than other workers. They're also more likely to work because they want to and not because they need a paycheck. But don't count on becoming financially secure: Self-employed men and women have virtually identical family incomes as other workers but they feel more financial stress, according to a recent Pew Research survey.

Most Middle-Aged Adults Are Rethinking Retirement Plans: The Threshold Generation
28 May 09 In the midst of a recession that has taken a heavy toll on many nest eggs, just over half of all working adults ages 50 to 64 say they may delay their retirement -- and another 16% say they never expect to stop working.

Different Age Groups, Different Recessions: Oldest are Most Sheltered
14 May 09 Older adults are living through what for them has been a kinder, gentler recession -- relatively speaking. They are less likely than younger and middle-aged adults to say that in the past year they have cut back on spending; suffered losses in their retirement accounts; or experienced trouble paying for housing or medical care.

Luxury or Necessity? The Public Makes a U-Turn
23 Apr 09 From the kitchen to the laundry room to the home entertainment center, Americans are paring down the list of familiar household appliances they say they can't live without.

Testimony of Paul Taylor, Executive Vice President, Pew Research Center to the Senate Finance Committee : Before the Great Recession, a Phantom Recovery
26 Mar 09 Pew Research Center Executive Vice President Paul Taylor's full testimony to the Senate Finance Committee.

Before the Great Recession, a Phantom Recovery
26 Mar 09 The eight-year period from 1999 through 2007 is the longest in modern U.S. economic history in which inflation-adjusted median household income failed to surpass an earlier peak.

Women Call the Shots at Home; Public Mixed on Gender Roles in Jobs: Gender and Power
25 Sep 08 They say it's a man’s world. But in the typical American family, it’s the woman who wears the pantsuit.

America's Four Middle Classes
29 Jul 08 The Top of the Class, the Satisfied Middle, the Anxious Middle and the Struggling Middle – what unites and divides the majority of Americans who call themselves “middle class.”

Baby Boomers: The Gloomiest Generation
25 Jun 08 America's baby boomers are in a collective funk. Members of the large generation born from 1946 to 1964 are more downbeat about their lives than are adults who are younger or older, according to a new Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey.

The Middle Class Blues: Pricey Neighborhoods, High Stress
29 May 08 When it comes to anxiety about family finances, an old truism applies: Where you stand depends on where you sit. Or, more precisely, on where your house or apartment sits.

Feeling Guilty: Americans Say They Aren't Saving Enough
14 May 08 Most Americans say they're not saving as much as they should -- but they're apparently not worried enough to do much about it, according to federal economic data and a recent survey by the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends project.

Who Wants To Be Rich?: The Currently Hard-Pressed Put a Higher Personal Priority on Being Wealthy than Do the Well-to-Do
30 Apr 08 Who says Americans worship at the feet of the almighty dollar? Not the American public. Only 13% of adults say it's "very important" for them to be wealthy, ranking this personal priority far behind six others measured in a new survey by the Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends project.

You're Laid Off: A Worsening Economy Couldn't Come at a Worse Time for Many U.S. Workers
16 Apr 08 At a time when the American economy is trending down and the unemployment rate is ticking up, one out of every seven U.S. workers fear they will be laid off in the next 12 months, according to a recent Pew Social and Demographic Trends survey.

Inside the Middle Class: Bad Times Hit the Good Life
9 Apr 08 Americans feel stuck in their tracks. Most survey respondents say that in the past five years, they either haven’t moved forward in life (25%) or have fallen backward (31%) -- the most downbeat assessment in nearly half a century of polling by the Pew Research Center and the Gallup organization. But at the same time, two-thirds say they have a higher standard of living than their parents had.

What Americans Pay For - and How: 'Information Age' Bills Keep Piling Up
7 Feb 07 Bill-paying is a different experience now than it was a generation ago. A sizable minority of adults pay by click. And a sizable majority pay each month for one or more of the big three Information Age staples that didn't exist or were in their infancy a few decades back -- cell phones, internet service and cable and satellite television.

We Try Hard. We Fall Short. Americans Assess Their Saving Habits
24 Jan 07 Despite a negative national savings rate, three-in-four Americans still think of themselves as savers. But a majority also acknowledge they don’t save enough, according to a new Pew survey.

Most Americans Moderately Upbeat About Family Finances in 2007
4 Jan 07 Most Americans are moderately upbeat about their family's financial prospects in the coming year, with 57% expecting some improvement in their financial situation and another 10% expecting a lot of improvement, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Luxury or Necessity?: Things We Can’t Live Without: The List Has Grown in the Past Decade
14 Dec 06 As Americans navigate increasingly crowded lives, the number of things they say they can't live without has multiplied in the past decade, according to a new Pew Research Center survey that asks whether a broad array of everyday consumer products are luxuries or necessities.

As Home Prices Cool Down, Homeowners Temper Their Optimism
6 Dec 06 Despite a record drop this past year in the median sales price of existing homes, more than eight-in-ten homeowners expect the value of their homes to go up either "a little" (55%) or "a lot" (26%) in the future. However, these anticipated levels of future gains are not nearly as great as the gains that homeowners say they've experienced in recent years.

It's Time for Holiday Shopping. Do You Have Your Budget?
20 Nov 06 A majority of Americans say they set a budget limit for their holiday shopping; 56% have already set or plan to set a limit while 41% say they don’t use a budget limit for holiday shopping.

Working After Retirement: The Gap Between Expectations and Reality
21 Sep 06 A new Pew Social Trends survey finds a yawning gap between the expectations of today's workers, more than three-quarters of whom believe they will work for pay even after they retire, and current retirees, just 12% of whom are actually working for pay right now.

Americans See Less Progress on Their Ladder of Life
14 Sep 06 As economists and politicians debate whether there is less mobility in the U.S. now than in the past, a new Pew survey finds that many among the public are seeing less progress in their own lives.

As the Price of Gas Goes Up, The Nation's Odometer Slows Down: History Repeats Itself
8 Aug 06 About half the public says it is driving less due to sticker shock at the pump.