Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Home Research Topics Economy & Work Personal Finances

Personal Finances

All

Personal Finances

Publications

  • report

    Different Age Groups, Different Recessions

    Older adults 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.

  • report

    Minorities, Immigrants and Homeownership

    The boom-and-bust cycle in the U.S. housing market over the past decade and a half has generated greater gains and larger losses for minority groups than it has for whites, according to an analysis of housing, economic and demographic data.

  • report

    Support for Free Trade Recovers Despite Recession

    Overview Despite the economic recession, public support for free trade agreements has recovered after declining a year ago. Currently, 44% say that free trade agreements like NAFTA and the policies of the World Trade Organization are good for the country, up from 35% a year ago. Slightly more than a third (35%) say that such […]

  • report

    Luxury or Necessity? The Public Makes a U-Turn

    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.

  • report

    A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States

    The nation’s 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants are more geographically dispersed than in the past, according to a new demographic and geographic analysis of this group that includes population and labor force estimates for each state.

  • report

    Public Knows Basic Facts About Financial Crisis

    Overview The latest Pew Research Center News IQ survey finds the American public reasonably well-informed about a number of basic facts pertaining to the current economic situation. Fully 83% know that the government assistance to banks and other financial institutions is aimed at getting them to lend more money, not less money. Roughly seven-in-ten (71%) […]

  • report

    Before the Great Recession, a Phantom Recovery

    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.

  • feature

    Is a Bad Economy Good for Church Attendance?

    Contrary to recent media reports suggesting that the country’s economic troubles have led to higher levels of church attendance, a Pew Forum analysis of polls by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has shed over half its value since October 2007, there has […]