FR3059_20240826_omb

Supporting Statement for the
Survey of Consumer Finances
(FR 3059; OMB No. 7100-0287)
Summary
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board), under authority
delegated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has extended for three years,
without revision, the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) (FR 3059; OMB No. 7100-0287).1
This triennial survey is the only source of representative information on the structure of U.S.
families’ finances. The survey collects data on the assets, debts, income, work history, pension
rights, use of financial services, and attitudes of a sample of U.S. families. Because the
ownership of some assets is relatively concentrated in a small number of families, the survey
makes a special effort to ensure proper representation of such assets by systematically
oversampling wealthier families.
For the 2025 SCF, the Board will conduct (1) up to 150 interviews averaging about 110
minutes (pretest) to be obtained in a test or series of tests of the survey procedures in 2025 and
(2) up to 7,000 interviews averaging about 110 minutes (main survey) between April 2025 and
March 2026. The pretest interviews and surveys will be conducted by an outside contractor.2
The pretest and the main survey will be collected by a field interviewer, either in person
or on the phone, using a computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) instrument. There is no
hardcopy version of the questionnaire other than the text of the computer program. The wording
of the survey questions will be modified to reflect the outcome of the pretest, but it is anticipated
that such changes will be relatively small.
The estimated total annual burden for the FR 3059 is 4,410 hours. There is no formal
reporting form for this information collection.
Background and Justification
The 2025 SCF will be the 15th triennial survey, which began in 1983, that provides
comprehensive data on U.S. families concerning the distribution of assets and debts, along with
related information and other data items necessary for analyzing financial behavior. The SCF is

Certain criteria apply to information collections conducted via the Board’s ad hoc clearance process. Such
information collections shall (1) be vetted by the Board’s clearance officer, as well as the Division director
responsible for the information collection, (2) display the OMB control number, (3) inform respondents that the
information collection has been approved, (4) be used only in such cases where response is voluntary, (5) not be
used to substantially inform regulatory actions or policy decisions, (6) be conducted only and exactly as described in
the OMB submission, (7) involve only noncontroversial subject matter that will not raise concerns for other Federal
agencies, (8) include a detailed justification of the effective and efficient statistical survey methodology (if
applicable), and (9) collect personally identifiable information (PII) only to the extent necessary (if collecting
sensitive PII, the form must display current Privacy Act notice). In addition, for each information collection
instrument, respondent burden will be tracked and submitted to OMB.
2 The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago is the contractor for 2025 survey.
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the only survey conducted in the United States that provides such financial data for a
representative sample of all households.
In addition to providing baseline information for current analysis, data from earlier SCFs
have proved useful in policy work at the Board. For example, these surveys have been used in
Board briefings and numerous memoranda to examine wealth and income inequality, changes in
the distribution of debt burdens in the population, coverage of household deposits by federal
deposit insurance, ownership of mutual funds and stocks, automobile leasing, and many other
areas. The surveys have also been used extensively for longer-term research within the Federal
Reserve System, in the Office of Tax Analysis and other parts of the Treasury department, in
other government agencies, in academia, by other research institutions, and by businesses.
Description of Information Collection
The SCF is expected to provide a core set of data on family income, assets, and liabilities.
For the survey, the contractor and the Board will draw samples for the survey designed to obtain
at most 7,000 completed interviews. The sample selected by the contractor will be an areaprobability design, which is a type of geographically structured random sample that provides
good national coverage of widely-distributed behavior. The sample selected by the Board will be
drawn from statistical records derived from individual tax returns; this “list” sample will be
designed to oversample wealthy households. Both samples will be selected in a way that is
consistent with procedures used in earlier SCFs. When the two samples are combined and
sample weights applied, the survey is representative of the number of households in the United
States in the survey year. The 2022 SCF represented 131.3 million households.
The SCFs are conducted by a field interviewer, provided by the contractor, either in
person or on the phone, using a computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) instrument. The
core information collected by the pretest and the main survey is summarized below.
•

Financial assets. These include checking, savings, and money market accounts; holdings
of publicly traded stock, bonds, certificates of deposit, mutual funds, annuities, trusts, and
life insurance.

•

Real estate and business assets. These include the value and purchase terms of the
household’s principal residence and other properties, and detailed information on
privately held businesses.

•

Pension assets. These include IRA, Keogh, thrift, profit sharing, 401(k), and other taxdeferred account holdings. Information would also be collected on current or expected
benefits from each pension and from Social Security. Questions on the expected date of
retirement, spousal benefits, and amount in defined contribution accounts will enable the
calculation of the present value of pension benefits. Sufficient information on each
household member’s work history and future work plans will be collected.

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•

Other assets. Information will be collected on other assets such as oil leases, mineral
rights, and royalties. Some data would also be gathered on jewelry, art objects, other
valuables, and major consumer durables such as automobiles and boats.

•

Household debts. The purpose, amount outstanding, source, and terms of each household
debt will be collected. These debts include home mortgages and home equity loans, lines
of credit, credit cards, other consumer loans, and other loans from businesses and
individuals. Information will also be collected on major household expenditures related to
debt acquisition including those for automobiles and home improvements.

•

Demographic data. These include education, employment and marital history, age,
health, race and ethnicity, and earnings for each household member.

•

Household income. A detailed breakdown of income designed to align with tax data
would also be collected.

•

Attitudes and financial decision making. Attitudes toward saving and credit will be
collected. Information on the use of financial services and methods of choosing among
competing sources will also be sought. Institutional data will be sought for each account
or financial service used by the household. These data will be collected in a way that
would allow identification of any clustering of services at institutions. For each
institution information would be obtained on the type, proximity, and typical mode of
use.
Personally Identifiable Information

Personally identifiable information (PII) obtained in this information collection includes
such respondent data as name, address, Social Security Number, and date of birth. The
information provided is sensitive in nature and is necessary for statistical purposes only, in
accordance with the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act. The SCF
records are used to structure, conduct, and process the SCF, which provides a basis for a wide
variety of government, academic, and other statistical research. Information collected as part of
this process is stored in the System of Records Notice BGFRS-20, Survey of Consumer Finances
(88 FR 40266).
Respondent Panel
The FR 3059 panel comprises a sample of U.S. families.
Frequency and Time Schedule
The FR 3059 is submitted triennially. The fieldwork for the pretest will be conducted
during 2024. The fieldwork for the main survey will be conducted between April 2025 and
March 2026. Very preliminary results from the main survey will be available to the Board in
mid-2026.

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Public Availability of Data
It is expected that the data will be published in summary form as an official report in late
2026. A version of the microdata, which will be altered to protect the identity of individual
respondents, will be made available to the public through the Board’s public website.3
Individuals may apply for access to the restricted SCF data via the Standard Application Process
(SAP).4 All proposals are reviewed using the criteria specified in the SAP. None of the pretest
data will be released to the public.
Legal Status
Section 2A of the Federal Reserve Act (FRA) requires that the Board and the Federal
Open Market Committee (FOMC) maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit
aggregates commensurate with the economy’s long run potential to increase production, so as to
promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term
interest rates (12 U.S.C. § 225a). In addition, under section 12A of the FRA, the FOMC is
required to implement regulations relating to the open market operations conducted by Federal
Reserve Banks (12 U.S.C. § 263). Those transactions must be governed with a view to
accommodating commerce and business and with regard to their bearing upon the general credit
situation of the country (12 U.S.C. § 263(c)). The Board and the FOMC use the information
obtained from the FR 3059 to help fulfill these obligations. The FR 3059 is a voluntary survey.
It is expected that the data collected will be published in summary form in the Federal
Reserve Bulletin in 2026. A version of the microdata, which will be altered to protect the identity
of individual respondents, will be made available to the public through the Board’s public
website. None of the pretest data will be released to the public. The information collected on the
FR 3059 that identifies the individual respondents is exempt from disclosure under exemption 6
of the Freedom of Information Act, which protects information the disclosure of which would
constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy of individuals involved (5 U.S.C. §
552(b)(6)).
Consultation Outside the Agency
The final survey questionnaire would be developed jointly by the Board and the
contractor. The contractor would conduct survey using the CAPI. The data to support the part of
the survey sample selected by the Board will be provided by the Statistics of Income Division
(SOI) of the Internal Revenue Service under a contract that allows this use of the data as well as
other more limited uses of the data for statistical adjustments to the final data and related
purposes. As in past surveys, the sample selection and survey administration will be managed by
the contractor so that the Board would not be given any names of survey participants; SOI would
not be given data to link survey responses with tax records; and the contractor would not be
given income data derived from the tax returns.

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4

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm .
https://www.researchdatagov.org.

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Public Comments
On March 7, 2024, the Board published an initial notice in the Federal Register (89 FR
16571) requesting public comment for 60 days on the extension, without revision, of the
FR 3059. The comment period for this notice expired on May 6, 2024. The Board did not receive
any comments. The Board adopted the extension, without revision, of the FR 3059 as originally
proposed. On July 31, 2024, the Board published a final notice in the Federal Register (89 FR
61423).
Estimate of Respondent Burden
As shown in the table below, the estimated total annual burden for the FR 3059 is 4,410
hours. The Board estimates the pretest and main survey would require an average of 110 minutes
per response. With 150 respondents, the estimated pretest burden would be 275 hours and would
be incurred on a one-time basis in 2024. The pretest sample is designed to be large enough to test
the survey instrument completely. With 7,000 respondents, the estimated main survey burden
would be 12,833 hours and would be incurred in 2025 and in 2026. The main survey sample size
is designed to enable meaningful statistical analysis. These reporting requirements represent less
than 1 percent of the Board’s total paperwork burden.
Estimated
number of
respondents

FR 3059
Pretest
Main survey

Estimated
annual
frequency

Estimated
average time
per response5

Estimated
annual burden
hours

150

1

37 minutes

93

7,000

1

37 minutes

4,317

Total

4,410

The estimated total annual cost to the public for the FR 3059 is $136,710.6
Sensitive Questions
Respondents will be asked to identify the age and sex of individual family members;
information on race will be collected using guidelines from the OMB. This information is needed
in the proposed survey in order to analyze the demographic aspects of consumer finances. The
information collected from the FR 3059 survey is maintained in the Board’s System of Records
Notice BGFRS-20 Survey of Consumer Finances.7 A Privacy Act Statement will be read by the
field interviewer to individual respondents prior to conducting the survey.

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The burden table show the estimated annual burden hours per year; however, this survey is issued once every three
years, thus the estimated average time per response has been divided by three to accurately show the annual burden
hours. The pretest survey a nd the main survey both take an estimated 110 minutes per response.
6 The average consumer cost of $31 is estimated using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Occupational
Employment and Wages, May 2023, published April 3, 2024, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t01.htm .
7 88 FR 40266 (June 21, 2023).

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Estimate of Cost to the Federal Reserve System
Work on the survey would be performed under a contract. The Board estimates that the
contract price for collecting and processing the FR 3059 survey would be $7.6 million per year.

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