The Fed’s New Consumer Survey: Five Things You Need To Know

The Federal Reserve issued its triennial update to the Survey of Consumer Finances, a massive effort to capture changes in Americans’ financial status from year to year.

The survey’s biggest highlights paint a grim picture of the American economy over the past few years: from 2007 to 2010, median real income fell 11.1 percent for U.S. families, with median income falling 7.7 percent.

Drops in family net worth were even worse: the median fell a staggering 38.8 percent, the Fed said, with the mean falling 14.7 percent.

Despite the bad news, however, there were also plenty of payment data points that could help companies in the space better craft goods and services to suit consumer needs. Here are five things you need to know about payments from the update.

 There’s a new estimate for how many American families are completely unbanked. As of 2010, 92.5 percent of families maintained some type of transaction account — either a checking, savings, money market, or call or cash account with a brokerage. That proportion is up 1.9 percentage points since 1998.

• Many of those families without checking accounts don’t like banks. When families without checking were asked why they failed to maintain one, 27.8 percent said their choice was based on the fact that they don’t like dealing with banks.

•  The number of families using credit cards is falling. As of 2010, 68 percent of families used credit cards, down from 72.9 percent in 2007.

• Of the families that do use credit cards, fewer carry a balance. Slightly more than half of families with credit cards carry a balance (55.1 percent), down from 61 percent in 2007.

• There’s still demand for store-specific or “gas” cards, but it’s decreasing. More than half of families with credit cards carry at least one card specific to a particular retailer or gasoline company (55.8 percent), but that number is down 4.4 percentage points since 2007.  

Expect PYMNTS.com to provide more in-depth coverage on this incredibly robust survey in the near future.

The 80-page bulletin issued by the Federal Reserve is available online.