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Money
What percentage of American adults could cover a surprise $400 expense entirely with cash or its equivalent?
63.1% of American adults could cover a surprise $400 expense entirely with cash or its equivalent - about 63 in every 100, or 6 in 10. That is the figure published by the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking for 2025.
0 in 100100 in 100
63.1
Where this number comes from
- Survey
- Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking
- What it measured
- SHED 2025 item pay_casheqv (“Derived by the Fed: would pay only “with the money currently in my checking/savings account or with cash” and/or “Put it on my credit card and pay it off in full at the next statement”, choosing no other way, when asked: Suppose that you have an emergency expense that costs $400. Based on your current financial situation, how would you pay for this expense?”), counting responses 1=Yes. Computed from the Federal Reserve's public-use microdata with its post-stratification weight WEIGHT. The public file has no design variables or replicate weights, so the standard error follows the Fed's documented design effect: SE = √(deff · p(1−p)/n), deff = 1.144 (the Fed's 1.14, or the Kish design effect of these weights if larger); unweighted n = 12,934.
- Population
- U.S. adults aged 18 and over
- Year
- 2025
- 95% confidence interval
- 62.21% to 63.99% (derived from the published standard error)
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, public-use data (doi:10.17016/datasets.002). Percentages computed here, with attribution.. See the source data
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