Washington, D.C. – Today, America Saves, a program of the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), released a new study – Black American Finances and Savings in a COVID Era – that utilizes new data from the Federal Reserve Board’s latest Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) and from a recent survey of 1,003 representative Black Americans commissioned by America Saves.[i]  The report found:

• A significant majority of those surveyed by America Saves (59%) expressed concern about their financial future.
• One reason for this worry may be lack of adequate savings. According to the Federal Reserve’s SCF, well under half of Black households (42%) have a savings account and/or money market deposit account at a bank or credit union, and many with an account said they were not saving enough to meet emergency expenditures.
• A large majority of the respondents do not make “regular and automatic” deposits in savings or money market deposit accounts.
• A large majority of those without savings accounts, in the America Saves survey, would “seriously” or “probably” consider opening an account if their bank or credit union encouraged them to do so and charged no monthly fees.

“Our research shows clearly that most Black Americans do not have savings accounts and worry about their financial future,” said George Barany, Director of America Saves.  “We call on banks and credit unions to reach out to all low- and moderate-income households to offer them no-fee savings accounts and assistance in establishing automatic saving,” he added.  Given recent job and economic reports, America Saves believes that the challenge of creating a savings cushion will grow.

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[i] The omnibus survey questions were written by CFA and administered by ENGINE Insights on November 12-17, 2020, to 1,003 Black adult respondents online.

Contact: George Barany, gbarany@consumerfed.org