IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0262301.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial vulnerability and the impact of COVID-19 on American households

Author

Listed:
  • Carol Bruce
  • Maeve E Gearing
  • Jill DeMatteis
  • Kerry Levin
  • Timothy Mulcahy
  • Jocelyn Newsome
  • Jonathan Wivagg

Abstract

In May 2020, Westat, in partnership with Stanford University School of Medicine, conducted a nationally-representative household survey of American attitudes and behaviors regarding COVID-19. In this article, we examine what the Coronavirus Attitudes and Behaviors Survey tells us about the impact of COVID-19 on financial status and how this impact varies by demographic characteristics, the presence of health risk factors, and financial status (including employment factors). The survey reveals significant inequality in financial impact, as those who were most financially vulnerable prior to the pandemic found themselves under greater financial strain, while those who were more financially secure have experienced a neutral or even positive impact of the pandemic on household finances. These findings have important implications for public policy as policymakers seek to target aid to those who need it most.

Suggested Citation

  • Carol Bruce & Maeve E Gearing & Jill DeMatteis & Kerry Levin & Timothy Mulcahy & Jocelyn Newsome & Jonathan Wivagg, 2022. "Financial vulnerability and the impact of COVID-19 on American households," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-11, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0262301
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0262301
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0262301&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0262301?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ray Boshara & Lowell R. Ricketts, 2020. "Which Families Are Most Vulnerable to an Income Shock such as COVID-19?," In the Balance, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, May.
    2. Scott R. Baker & Robert A Farrokhnia & Steffen Meyer & Michaela Pagel & Constantine Yannelis, 2023. "Income, Liquidity, and the Consumption Response to the 2020 Economic Stimulus Payments," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(6), pages 2271-2304.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steimle, Samantha & Gassman-Pines, Anna & Ryan, Rebecca M., 2024. "The expanded Child Tax Credit and low-income families’ food insecurity: Associations across and within months of receipt," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Sokolova, 2023. "Marginal Propensity to Consume and Unemployment: a Meta-analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 813-846, December.
    2. Abe Dunn & Mahsa Gholizadeh, 2025. "The Geography of Consumption and Local Economic Shocks: The Case of the Great Recession," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 206-244, April.
    3. Daigo Nakata, 2023. "Emergency Economic Response and Evaluation in the COVID-19 Crisis," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 19(4), pages 1-25, November.
    4. Crawley, Edmund & Theloudis, Alexandros, 2024. "Income Shocks and their Transmission into Consumption," Discussion Paper 2024-012, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    5. Kim, Meeroo & Oh, Yoon Hae, 2021. "The Impact of COVID-19 Regional Cash Subsidies on the Sales of Local Businesses in South Korea," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 43(2), pages 103-123.
    6. Kindsgrab, Paul M., 2022. "Do higher income taxes on top earners trickle down? A local labor markets approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    7. Pongpitch Amatyakul & Panchanok Jumrustanasan & Pornchanok Tapkham, 2023. "What can 20 billion financial transactions tell us about the impacts of Covid-19 fiscal transfers?," BIS Working Papers 1130, Bank for International Settlements.
    8. Martin O'Connell & Áureo de Paula & Kate Smith, 2021. "Preparing for a pandemic: spending dynamics and panic buying during the COVID‐19 first wave," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 249-264, June.
    9. Seungjun Baek & Seongeun Kim & Tae-hwan Rhee & Wonmun Shin, 2023. "How effective are universal payments for raising consumption? Evidence from a natural experiment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(5), pages 2181-2211, November.
    10. Xiong, Yanyan & Cui, Xue & Yu, Liuming, 2024. "Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on online consumption share: Evidence from China's mobile payment data," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    11. Meyer, Steffen & Uhr, Charline, 2024. "Ambiguity and private investors’ behavior after forced fund liquidations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    12. Masayuki MORIKAWA, 2021. "COVID-19, Vaccination, and Consumer Behavior," Discussion papers 21079, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    13. Andreas Loschel & Michael Price & Laura Razzolini & Madeline Werthschulte, 2020. "Negative income shocks and the support of environmental policies - Insights from the COVID-19 pandemic," Framed Field Experiments 00710, The Field Experiments Website.
    14. Michael Barnett & Greg Buchak & Constantine Yannelis, 2023. "Epidemic responses under uncertainty," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 120(2), pages 2208111120-, January.
    15. Lee, Jongkwan & Yang, Hee-Seung, 2022. "Pandemic and employment: Evidence from COVID-19 in South Korea," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    16. Francesca Bergamante & Marco Marucci, 2023. "Sostegno ai consumi: il profilo dei beneficiari di voucher, bonus e buoni spesa," ECONOMIA E SOCIET? REGIONALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2023(1), pages 39-52.
    17. Victoria Baudisch & Matthias Neuenkirch, 2023. "Costly, but (Relatively) Ineffective? An Assessment of Germany’s Temporary VAT Rate Reduction During the Covid-19 Pandemic," Research Papers in Economics 2023-04, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    18. Masciandaro, Donato & Goodhart, Charles & Ugolini, Stefano, 2021. "Pandemic recession and helicopter money: Venice, 1629–1631," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(3), pages 300-318, December.
    19. Michaela Benzeval & Jon Burton & Thomas Crossley & Paul Fisher & Annette Jäckle & Hamish Low & Brendan Read, 2020. "The idiosyncratic impact of an aggregate shock: the distributional consequences of COVID-19," IFS Working Papers W20/15, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    20. Kawaguchi, Kohei & Kodama, Naomi & Tanaka, Mari, 2021. "Small business under the COVID-19 crisis: Expected short- and medium-run effects of anti-contagion and economic policies," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0262301. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.