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Findings
- Go to finding 1Cash balances increased temporarily by roughly 70 percent in April 2020 and January 2021, after the arrival of stimulus payments, but fell continuously after those payments.
- Go to finding 2初始流动资金余额较低的家庭——收入较低和账户持有人较年轻——在百分比基础上经历了最大的余额增长, but lost those initial balance gains the fastest.
- Go to finding 3We see faster spend-down in liquid assets among families with essential workers.
- Go to finding 4低收入家庭的大流行病余额最初增加是由于账户流入增加所致, while high-income families offset decreases in inflows by larger decreases in outflows.
- Go to finding 5Income increased for low-income house¬holds despite greater job losses, due in part to government supports.
- Go to finding 6After initial spending decreases across the income distribution, 低收入家庭的支出反弹至高于正常水平，而高收入家庭的支出仍与之前的趋势大致持平.
- Go to finding 7Implications
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May 2021
More than a year after the declaration of national emergency on March 13, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to constrain economic activity in unprecedented ways. 对团体聚会和非必要外出的限制使某些企业难以维持, leading to layoffs and closures. In other industries, remote working has become the new normal, leading to dramatic shifts in daily needs and routines for employees. Schools have likewise struggled to reopen, with some forced back into remote instruction after increases in infections.
As families work to adapt to these frequently-changing conditions, economic health and stability are top of mind for policymakers. The most vulnerable among us have been impacted the most, 低收入者面临的失业率高于高收入者(Ganong等人). 2020). 政府采取了大规模干预措施，通过资助刺激支票，在财务上支持家庭, expanding and supplementing Unemployment Insurance (UI), and providing relief on debts.
In this report, we shed light on families’ financial positions during the pandemic, and how changes in behavior and policy have played a role. Using patterns in liquid balances as a lens into household finances, we aim to understand how the pandemic has affected financial vulnerability. Specifically, we focus on two main questions. First, how have liquid asset balances changed for families during the COVID-19 pandemic, 不同家庭的人口特征和就业行业又有何不同? And second, what are the drivers of these observed changes in balance? 具体来说，在大流行期间，消费者的收入、支出和债务支付是如何变化的?
Finding One: Cash balances increased temporarily by roughly 70 percent in April 2020 and January 2021, after the arrival of stimulus payments, but fell continuously after those payments.
余额在整个分布中都有所增加，低端的相对百分比变化更大
Finding Two: 初始流动资金余额较低的家庭——收入较低和账户持有人较年轻——在百分比基础上经历了最大的余额增长, but lost those initial balance gains the fastest.
Finding Three: We see faster spend-down in liquid assets among families with essential workers.
Finding Four: 低收入家庭的大流行病余额最初增加是由于账户流入增加所致, while high-income families offset decreases in inflows by larger decreases in outflows.
Finding Five: Income increased for low-income house¬holds despite greater job losses, due in part to government supports.
Finding Six: After initial spending decreases across the income distribution, 低收入家庭的支出反弹至高于正常水平，而高收入家庭的支出仍与之前的趋势大致持平.
Finding Seven: Implications
Families had elevated cash buffers at the end of 2020, boosted again in January 2021 by a second round of stimulus. As we show above, 两轮刺激计划使家庭现金余额在2020年4月和2021年1月分别比上年提高了约70%. Typically, families experience a further increase in cash balances during tax season, when most families receive tax refunds worth, on average, six weeks’ of income, fueling spending and saving for more than half the year (Farrell et al. 2019). Thus, cash buffers may remain elevated for some families into the first half of 2021, even without a third round of stimulus checks.
在2021年1月初的第二轮刺激之后，现金缓冲的激增似乎持续时间较短. 而在今年余下的时间里，第一轮刺激后的余额增长逐渐减少, the balance gains from the second disbursement seemed to revert within the following weeks. There could be several factors contributing to the different patterns. First, the disbursement timeline for the second round was much more compact than the first. Second, spending—and outflows in general—were depressed during the spring of 2020, contributing positively to balances, absent a corresponding decrease in inflows. Given that outflows had mostly returned to typical levels by the end of 2020, that could partially explain a faster depletion of January 2021 balance gains. Finally, the second stimulus disbursement occurred when cash balances were still elevated, 使家庭能够更迅速地使用刺激资金，而不是为了进一步支撑现金缓冲而保留这些资金. We observe this via increases in spending, debt and credit card payments, 以及向储蓄的转移——在早期大流行的高度不确定性期间，所有这些可能都被搁置了.
社会保障体系和经济刺激在提高家庭现金储备方面发挥着关键作用, especially low-income families, showing the importance of targeted support. On a percent basis, 收入较低的四分之一家庭的现金余额增长最为明显. 在大流行期间，低收入家庭的总收入中位数增幅也最大, despite having the highest rate of job losses. Supplemental increases to UI benefits contributed to these increases in total income.
在大流行初期，所有收入四分位数的流动余额都有所增加, 收入和支出对这些结余的贡献方式因收入范围而异. For most families, balances grew despite elevated outflows because of even larger increases in inflows, 但高收入家庭的情况正好相反:尽管资金流入减少，但由于资金外流同时减少，家庭余额仍在增长. 收入最低的三个四分之一家庭的支出、有条件债务和信用卡支付金额同比增长. They also experienced year-over-year increases in total income, supplemented by increases in unemployment insurance. 后一个因素超过了前一个因素，导致支票账户余额中位数增长. In contrast, 在疫情的大部分时间里，收入最高的家庭的总收入与2019年持平, representing a decrease relative to pre-pandemic elevation over the prior year. At the same time, their spending was below or at parity with 2019 levels, as were their debt payments. 这些流出行为的减少足以让最高收入家庭的中位数余额持续上升, despite stable inflows.
对家庭部门的分配观点对于了解大流行期间典型家庭的财务结果至关重要. As shown in Finding One, 平衡趋势因指标而异:平均值通常保持稳定上升，而中位数则稳步下降. 这意味着仅依靠总体平均统计数据可能会掩盖典型家庭财务结果的重要变化. Moreover, aggregate statistics on the deposits of households and nonprofits 此外，商业银行不会将家庭的结果与其他部门区分开来. 这种区分对于理解大流行和政策对典型家庭的影响至关重要.
We thank our research team, specifically Tanya Sonthalia and Yuning Liu, for their hard work and contributions to this research.
Additionally, we thank Anna Garnitz and Sruthi Rao for their support. We are indebted to our internal partners and colleagues, who support delivery of our agenda in a myriad of ways, and acknowledge their contributions to each and all releases.
We would like to acknowledge Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., 表彰他在建立研究所和推动正在进行的研究议程方面的远见卓识和领导能力. We remain deeply grateful to Peter Scher, Head of Corporate Responsibility, Heather Higginbottom, President of the JPMC PolicyCenter, 以及公司其他员工的资源和支持，以开创一种新的方法，为全球经济分析和洞察力做出贡献.
