Which of the following describes your employment status during the pandemic?
CODE ALL THAT APPLY: CODE RESPONSES IN THE ORDER THEY ARE GIVEN.
1. Permanently lost a job or closed a business
2. Became temporarily unemployed or temporarily closed a business
3. Started a new job or established a new business
4. Began a new telework schedule
5. Continued teleworking
6. Continued reporting to a place of business
7. Continued to be unemployed or out of the labor force
8. Reduced hours
9. Increased hours
10. Entered retirement
-7. OTHER
X19010/X19011/X19012/X19013/X19014/X19015/X19016/X19017/X19018/X19019
Which of the following describes your (husband's/wife's/spouse's/partner's) employment status during the pandemic?
CODE ALL THAT APPLY: CODE RESPONSES IN THE ORDER THEY ARE GIVEN.
1. Permanently lost a job or closed a business
2. Became temporarily unemployed or temporarily closed a business
3. Started a new job or established a new business
4. Began a new telework schedule
5. Continued teleworking
6. Continued reporting to a place of business
7. Continued to be unemployed or out of the labor force
8. Reduced hours
9. Increased hours
10. Entered retirement
-7. OTHER
0. Inap. (No spouse/partner)
X19020/X19021/X19022/X19023/X19024/X19025/X19026
During the pandemic, some households had difficulty paying their bills. Did you (or your husband/wife/spouse/partner) renegotiate payments for, or otherwise receive forbearance or relief on, any of the following loans or accounts?
CODE ALL THAT APPLY: CODE RESPONSES IN THE ORDER THEY ARE GIVEN.
1. Mortgage
2. Rent
3. Auto loans
4. Credit cards
5. Student loans
6. Other loans
7. Utilities
-1. None of these
IF ANY OF X19020-X19026=1 THEN ASK X19027:
X19027. For how many months did you (or your husband/wife/spouse/partner) receive mortgage forbearance?
NUMBER OF MONTHS:
-2. Renegotiated payments
0. Inap (X19020-X19026^=1)
IF ANY OF X19020-X19026=2 THEN ASK X19028:
X19028. For how many months did you (or your husband/wife/spouse/partner) receive rent relief?
NUMBER OF MONTHS:
-2. Renegotiated payments
0. Inap (X19020-X19026^=2)
X19029/X19030/X19031
Did you (or your husband/wife/spouse/partner) receive any of the following during the pandemic?
CODE ALL THAT APPLY: CODE RESPONSES IN THE ORDER THEY ARE GIVEN.
1. Unemployment insurance or UI benefits
2. Stimulus payment(s) from the government
3. Paycheck Protection Program or PPP loan(s)
-1. None of these
IF ANY OF X19029-X19031=1 THEN ASK X19032:
X19032. For how many total months did you (and your husband/wife/spouse/partner) receive unemployment insurance (UI) benefits? (Include period that benefits were delayed if eventually paid).
IF BOTH R AND SPOUSE RECEVIED UI BENEFITS: TAKE THE TOTAL NUMBER OF MONTHS FOR EACH INDIVIDUALLY AND ADD THEM TOGETHER.
NUMBER OF MONTHS:
0. Inap (X19029-X19031^=1)
X19033/X19034/X19035/X19036/X19037/X19038/ X19039
Did you (or your husband/wife/spouse/partner) experience any of the following challenges during the pandemic?
CODE ALL THAT APPLY: CODE RESPONSES IN THE ORDER THEY ARE GIVEN.
1. Missed a regular payment on rent or mortgage
2. Missed a regular payment on a credit card, auto loan, or other debt
3. Missed a regular payment on utilities
4. Delayed a payment on, or were unable to pay, a medical bill
5. Struggled to afford food 6. Had trouble buying food even though you had money
-1. No hardship
-7. Other hardship (specify)
IF NUMBER OF CHILDREN > 0 THEN ASK X19040- X19045:
The pandemic disrupted childcare and added virtual instruction responsibilities for many households that may have made working difficult.
X19040. What was the most significant impact of increased child-related responsibilities on your employment: did you stop working, work fewer hours, work the same numbers of hours, but were less focused, change jobs, or no disruption?
1. Stopped working
2. Worked fewer hours
3. Worked the same amount but was less focused
4. Changed jobs
5. No disruption
0. Inap. (No children in home)
X19041. What was the most significant impact of increased child-related responsibilities on your (husband's/wife's/spouse's/partner's) employment: did your (husband/wife/spouse/partner) stop working, work fewer hours, work the same numbers of hours, but was less focused, change jobs, or no disruption?
1. Stopped working
2. Worked fewer hours
3. Worked the same amount but was less focused
4. Changed jobs
5. No disruption
0. Inap. (No spouse/partner; No children in home)
X19042 X19043/X19044/X19045
Did you do any of the following in response to childcare or schooling disruptions during the pandemic?
CODE ALL THAT APPLY: CODE RESPONSES IN THE ORDER THEY ARE GIVEN.
1. Move to be closer to family or friends for help
2. Have family members move to you so they could help
3. Enroll in a school that had in-person classes
4. Hire or share a nanny or educator
-1. None of these
0. Inap. (No children in home)
X19046 Have you (or your husband/wife/spouse/partner) ever been diagnosed with COVID-19?
INCLUDE POSITIVE RESULTS FROM EITHER LAB OR SELF-ADMINISTERED TESTS
1. Yes
5. No
IF X19046=1 THEN ASK X19047 & X19048:
X19047. Were you (or your husband/wife/spouse/partner) ever hospitalized due to COVID-19?
1. Yes
5. No
0. Inap. (X19046=5)
X19048. Have you (or your husband/wife/spouse/partner) suffered any persistent symptoms due to your COVID-19 infection, such as shortness of breath or fatigue?
1. Yes
5. No
0. Inap. (X19046=5)
X19049 Did someone who was living with you during the pandemic die from COVID-19 or an illness that you suspect was COVID-19?
1. Yes
5. No
1. Division of Research and Statistics, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The analysis and conclusions set forth are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of Governors or the Federal Reserve staff. Return to text
2. Aladangady et al. (2023) is the Federal Reserve Board's official report that accompanies the 2022 release of its Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). It focuses on the financial positions of U.S. families in 2022 relative to previous surveys and, for the most part, simply alludes to pandemic-related turbulence between the 2019 and 2022 surveys. Unless otherwise specified, this FEDS Note uses the net worth, income, and other definitions from that report, including adjusting all dollar values to 2022 dollars using the "current methods" version of the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U-RS). Return to text
3. These questions were drafted in 2021 to enable inclusion in the 2022 SCF, which was fielded between April 2022 and April 2023. Most interviews—around three-fourths—were conducted in 2022, with the remainder conducted in early 2023. See appendix for the SCF COVID-19 questions. Return to text
4. In addition, the temporarily expanded unemployment insurance program—which included a supplemental benefit that, in many instances, meant beneficiaries could receive more than 100 percent of their pre-pandemic wages (Ganong, Noel, and Vavra, 2020)—introduced an added disincentive to work for some period of time that may have led to a reduction in work. Return to text
5. This characterization is based on the first option that the respondent selected for themselves and, if applicable, their spouse or partner (although including the second option does not materially affect conclusions). Reduced hours, a job or business loss, and entry into retirement are classified as a "work reduction;" increased hours and a new job or business are classified as a "work increase;" and continuing to report (either in-person or via telework) and continuing to be unemployed or out of the labor force are classified as "no change." Less than 2 percent of families in any group reported changes in opposite directions between the respondent and their spouse or partner, and these families are included in the "no change" category. Return to text
6. In any given year, a family's income may deviate from their "usual income" because of a recent spell of unemployment, a bonus from an employer, a capital loss or gain on investments, or other transitory factors. Usual income is measured in the survey after income has been reported, if respondents indicate their income in the survey reference year was unusually high or low compared with what they would expect in a normal year. Return to text
7. Barrero, Bloom, and Davis (2021) estimate that nearly half of paid work hours shifted to remote status during 2020 after the onset of the pandemic. Return to text
8. Further, the expansion of telework, which grants more flexibility than in-office work, could have led to work increases. Return to text
9. This characterization is based on any report of telework or new telework, respectively, between the respondent and spouse or partner, whether or not it was the first option selected in response to the employment question(s). Return to text
10. This finding is in line with predictions based on the 2019 SCF (Helppie-McFall and Hsu, 2021). Return to text
11. Interestingly, 62 percent of families that reported a hospitalization due to COVID-19 also reported persistent symptoms, whereas 14 percent of families that reported persistent symptoms also reported a hospitalization. Return to text
12. The health status question offers four ratings—excellent, good, fair, and poor—and for these calculations, if the respondent and their spouse or partner differed, the family is categorized as the worse of the two. Return to text
13. For example, over 50 percent of families that experienced a hospitalization due to COVID-19 reported their health status as fair or poor, versus around 30 percent of families that did not. In each of the bottom two quintiles of usual income, nearly two-thirds of families that experienced a hospitalization reported their health status as fair or poor, versus less than half of families that did not. Return to text
14. Payment relief programs offered an additional buffer to these disruptions. Ten percent of families reported receiving relief on housing—that is, mortgage or rent—payments, and 13 percent of families reported receiving relief on auto or other installment loan, credit card, or utility payments, with 17 percent of families overall receiving some form of payment relief. (Student loans, most of which were automatically placed in forbearance, are excluded from this calculation.) More families in the bottom segments of the distribution received relief of each type. Return to text
15. This pattern departs from the one observed for work reduction among families along two dimensions. First, the UI incidence is expectedly more muted throughout, even as eligibility expanded. Second, families in the bottom quintile of the income distribution and families without a high school degree had much lower UI rates than work reductions, perhaps reflecting a higher incidence of irregular or informal employment within these groups. Return to text
16. The SCF income measure reflects a family's before-tax income for the full calendar year preceding the survey. This measure aggregates reported income from specific sources—most of which correspond to items on an income tax form—including wages, self-employment and business income, taxable and tax-exempt interest, dividends, realized capital gains, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other related support programs provided by the government, pensions and withdrawals from retirement accounts, Social Security, alimony and other support payments, and miscellaneous sources. In the 2022 SCF, some of these sources capture pandemic-related fiscal support that families received in 2021, including, for example, enhanced unemployment and food stamp benefits. That said, as the SCF did not systematically collect information on stimulus payments that families received from the government when probing 2021 income, such payments are excluded from the SCF income measure. Return to text
17. Wage income explains at least half of mean income growth within each of the higher-income groups. Other income sources that are less accessible to lower-income groups, such as realized capital gains, also helped drive up their income. Return to text
18. Figures 1 and 2 include all families in the "all" category but, for illustrative purposes, do not separately present the top decile. For this group, mean income (net worth) by employment experience was $479,000 ($4,756,000), $562,000 ($4,189,000), and $759,000 ($7,347,000) for work reduction, work increase, and no change, respectively; mean income (net worth) by health experience was $599,000 ($5,407,000), $704,000 ($6,787,000), $444,000 ($6,204,000), and $696,000 ($6,637,000) for persistent symptoms, no persistent symptoms, hospitalization, and no hospitalization, respectively; and mean income (net worth) by telework was $625,000 ($8,227,000) and $739,000 ($5,501,000) for no telework and any telework, respectively. Return to text
19. Among families in the bottom quintile, mean income for families whose employment did not change was lower than mean income for families whose employment decreased, reflecting the relatively large share of families in that segment that reported they remained out of the labor force during the pandemic. Return to text
20. For example, families in the second usual income quintile that experienced a severe COVID-19 infection of either type earned more, on average, than families in the same quintile that did not. This relationship persists when removing unemployment benefits. Return to text
21. The share of families that experienced a reduction in work but were employed at the time of their interview was still a handful of percentage points below the employment share of families that experienced a positive employment change, partially reflecting the inclusion of families that entered retirement in the "work reduction" category. Two-thirds of families that experienced a hospitalization were employed at the time of the interview (versus 75 percent that did not), and 80 percent of families that had persistent symptoms were employed at the time of the interview (versus 73 percent of families that did not). These figures are derived from questions in the core SCF regarding the respondent's (and their spouse or partner's) employment status. Return to text
22. While this pattern could imply that, as of 2022, families that saw reductions in work or families that were less insulated from shocks had more financial cushion to weather future setbacks than families in these other groups, the higher level of net worth primarily reflects increased housing and business wealth, illiquid assets that may be less suited to help smooth families' consumption through such setbacks. Return to text
23. For the measure based on persistent symptoms, the difference is again largest in the bottom quintile, but for the hospitalization measure, the difference is largest in the middle quintile. The differences across the distribution for the measure based on persistent symptoms were generally slightly larger than those from the comparison between decreased employment and the baseline employment group. Return to text
24. In a companion piece, Aladangady, Chang, and Krimmel (2023) show that racial and ethnic gaps in net worth shrunk between the 2019 and 2022 surveys, though non-White families became increasingly financially uncertain, which could reflect differential pandemic-related experiences. Return to text
Bricker, Jesse, Sarena Goodman, Kevin Moore, Sarah Reber, Alice Henriques Volz, and Richard Windle (2023). "U.S. Families Experiences of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," FEDS Notes. Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, October 18, 2023, https://doi.org/10.17016/2380-7172.3406.
Disclaimer: FEDS Notes are articles in which Board staff offer their own views and present analysis on a range of topics in economics and finance. These articles are shorter and less technically oriented than FEDS Working Papers and IFDP papers.