Economy

The State Where the Most People Are Likely to Run Out of Money

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: May 19, 2021 8:25 am

Shortly after the outbreak of COVID-19, the Census Bureau launched the Household Pulse Survey, a vast initiative to measure the effects of the crisis on Americans. The bureau has released weekly results in three phases. The first began on April 23, 2020, and ended July 21, 2020. The second and third phases followed, with the current phase, 3.1, released on May 5.
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The Household Pulse Survey was created by an effort across several government agencies. These include the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Defense, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Center for Health Statistics, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the Social Security Administration, and the USDA Economic Research Service.

Among the questions asked is whether people will have difficulty paying for household expenses. Specifically, the survey asks about the “Percentage of adults living in households where it has been somewhat or very difficult to pay for usual household expenses in the last 7 days.”

The national average of people who are concerned they will face this difficulty is 26.2%. Mississippi is the state with the highest figure, 35.0%. The lowest state number is South Dakota’s 14.1%. The city with the highest figure is Houston at 37.4%, while Boston’s 17.0% is the lowest city number.

Click here to read about the poorest city in each state.