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What percentage of American adults say the biggest emergency expense they could cover from savings alone is under $100?
18.5% of American adults say the biggest emergency expense they could cover from savings alone is under $100 - about 19 in every 100, or 2 in 10. That is the figure published by the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking for 2025.
0 in 100100 in 100
18.5
Where this number comes from
- Survey
- Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking
- What it measured
- SHED 2025 item EF7 (“Based on your current financial situation, what is the largest emergency expense that you could handle right now using only your savings?”), counting responses 1=Under $100, among the randomly assigned half-sample shown version EF7 of the question (dov_ef7 = 1). 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 = 6,453.
- Population
- U.S. adults aged 18 and over
- Year
- 2025
- 95% confidence interval
- 17.49% to 19.51% (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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