FR3077_20231130_omb_B

Supporting Statement Part B for the
Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking
(FR 3077; OMB No. 7100-0374)
Summary
For all information collections that involve surveys or require a statistical methodology,
the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) is required to provide a complete
justification and explanation of the use of such a methodology. For collections that employ
surveys without such a methodology, the Board should be prepared to justify its decision not to
use statistical methods in any case where such methods might reduce burden or improve
accuracy of results.
Background
Data from the Board’s consumer survey efforts is used to provide timely information on
developments in consumer financial markets, consumer behaviors, and conditions and emerging
economic risks in communities. The information collected under the SHED contributes to Board
studies that explore the activities, experiences, and attitudes of individual consumers regarding
their financial well-being and potential risks to their finances. The Board’s Division of Consumer
and Community Affairs (DCCA) directs consumer- and community-related functions performed
by the Board, including conducting research on financial services policies and practices and their
implications for economic and supervisory policies that are core to the Board’s functions.
Consumer surveys are an important tool for informing the Board’s understanding of consumer
financial decisions and markets, and the Board has a long history of using surveys to inform its
work in order to gain insight into consumer decisionmaking, consumer financial stability,
community development, and neighborhood stabilization. These insights aid the Board in
promoting a fair and transparent consumer financial services market, including for traditionally
underserved households and neighborhoods.
Since 2013, when the SHED was first collected, the number of respondents has grown in
order to increase the level of sub-group analysis. In addition, the SHED has grown in length to
collect additional information on topics that are of interest between years and to accommodate
the demand for information on new trends and risks that are emerging. It has also become a wellrecognized tool for researchers both within and outside the Federal Reserve System. The
SHED’s goal has also expanded to include question modules that can be utilized to quickly
respond to the need for information on emerging risks and trends. Due to the growth of the data
collection, the anticipation that this collection will continue on an annual basis, the changing
nature of the information that is collected and the potential policy, operational, supervisory and
regulatory uses, the Board implemented the SHED as a separate ad hoc collection in 2017.1 The
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In 2013, the SHED was conducted as an ad hoc survey under the family of Consumer Financial Stability Surveys
(FR 3053; OMB No. 7100-0323). From 2014 through 2016, the SHED was conducted as an anticipated survey
under the generic clearance for Consumer and Stakeholder Surveys (FR 3073; OMB No. 7100-0359). Since 2017,
the SHED has been collected under its own clearance (FR 3077; OMB No. 7100-0374). The current and previous
surveys including public datasets and survey questionnaires are available on the Federal Reserve’s website at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/consumerscommunities/shed_data.htm.

resulting reports and survey data (void of sensitive personally identifiable information (PII)) that
resulted from previous and current SHED questionnaires are publicly available on the Board’s
public website.
This information is generally not available from other sources. The SHED is reevaluated
annually to identify and mitigate duplication, identify new and emerging areas which may offer
new insights, and to remove topics which have limited value given existing data. If this data
collection were stopped or conducted less frequently, it would reduce the abilities of the Board to
monitor emerging economic issues identified in the survey, including issues with particular
relevance to low- and moderate- income communities.
The Board expects to retain all final reports, final survey instruments, and non-restricted
data (without PII) on the public website. Restricted data associated with the final report will be
retained for at least four years; drafts of the final report will be retained for at least two years; the
data collected from the survey instruments will be retained by the third party vendor for at least
six months; recruiting and participant lists will be maintained by the third party vendor who
fielded the instrument; and Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative contract records will
be retained for at least six years after final payment.
Universe and Respondent Selection
The Board anticipates conducting the SHED annually with as many as 20,500
respondents contacted per survey. However, the survey is sent to more individuals than the
desired sample size since somewhat less than two-thirds of contacted respondents typically
complete the survey. The survey is closed after approximately 12,000 people complete it. The
SHED data collection is conducted through a vendor who maintains an online probability-based
Internet panel. An online probability-based Internet panel is defined here as a panel of voluntary
respondents that have been recruited through an address-based sampling methodology (ABS)
using the Delivery Sequence File of the United States Postal Service technique or other similar
technique that would allow for equal probability of selection into the panel for all potential
respondents. There are several reasons that a probability-based Internet panel was selected as the
method for this survey. First, these types of Internet surveys that employ address based sampling
(ABS) (or a similar sampling technique) for recruitment have been found to be representative of
the general population. Second, the ABS Internet panel allows the same respondents to be reinterviewed in subsequent surveys with relative ease, as the respondents remain active in the
panel for several years. Third, Internet panel surveys have numerous existing data points on
respondents from previously administered surveys, including detailed demographic and
economic information, allowing for the inclusion of additional information on respondents
without increasing respondent burden. Finally, collecting data through an ABS Internet panel
survey is cost-effective and can be done relatively quickly. The resulting samples would behave
as Equal Probability of Selection Method (EPSEM) samples.
Because participation in the SHED depends on several separate decisions made by
respondents, the cumulative response rate reflects every stage of the recruitment, including
acceptance of the initial recruitment into the panel, completing an initial demographic profile
survey, and agreeing to take complete the SHED if selected out of the panel. In the most recent

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2021 survey, the final-stage completion rate for the SHED was 65.3 percent and the cumulative
response rate was 4.0 percent.
The questions in the survey have been designed to better illuminate the activities,
experiences, and attitudes of individual consumers regarding their financial lives and the
financial wellbeing of those in their household. They are intended to complement and augment
the existing base of knowledge from other data sources.
The SHED is a general population survey such that it would behave as an EPSEM. The
methodology used to develop a respondent universe that behaves as an EPSEM would start by
weighting the respondent universe to detailed geodemographic benchmarks of adults living in the
United States from, for example, the latest March supplement of the Current Population Survey
(CPS). The weights would then be used as the measure of size (MOS) for each respondent within
the respondent universe, allowing for a probability proportional to size (PPS) procedure to select
the 2023 SHED respondent sample, in turn allowing each respondent to carry a design weight of
unity.
Procedures for Collecting Information
The survey data are weighted to produce reliable estimates of population parameters. It is
expected that the 2023 SHED would be weighted to compensate for limitations such as
differential nonresponse and undercoverage within the respondent universe.
To further compensate for limitations within the panel when sub-populations vary
considerably, each subpopulation (stratum) would be sampled independently. The strata would
be mutually exclusive (i.e., members must be assigned to only one stratum) and collectively
exhaustive (i.e., no members can be excluded).
Random or systematic sampling would then be applied within each stratum.
Stratification2 improves the representativeness of the sample by reducing sampling error. It also
likely produces a weighted mean that has less variability than the arithmetic mean of a simple
random sample of the population.
In order to identify the relevant strata for the SHED, the universe of respondents could be
enhanced with various ancillary data (maintained by the vendor) to facilitate a stratification plan,
as determined by the vendor. This ancillary data could allow for a disproportionate stratified
sampling methodology across such strata as:
Stratum 1: Hispanic households with at least one 18 to 24 year-old,
Stratum 2: Remaining Hispanic households,
Stratum 3: Remaining households with at least one 18-24 year-old, and
Stratum 4: All remaining households.

2

Stratification is the process of grouping members of the population into relatively homogeneous sub-groups before
sampling.

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Initial, follow-up, and survey initiation contact with the sample respondents within the
respondent universe would be conducted by the vendor. The exact form of each of these contacts
would vary somewhat, depending upon vendor preference.
Sample Respondent Contact
Steps
Description
1
Adults from address-based sampled households are invited to join the vendor panel
through a series of mailings or other initial contact methods. Households who receive
the initial contact have the opportunity to respond and join the panel.
2
The subset of addresses that match to a corresponding telephone number and have
not responded to the initial contact (mailing or other form) receive a follow-up phone
call. Households who receive the follow-up contact call have the opportunity to
respond and join the panel.
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Respondents join the panel receive surveys through the processes and technology
established by the vendor.
The respondents receive e-mails when there is a survey available for them to take as well
as periodic e-mail or text message reminders to take the survey during the fielding period. The
surveys are posted on a secure website developed and maintained using the vendor’s proprietary
web survey delivery system. The software easily accommodates different question formats,
including open-ended response fields. It also allows participants to skip questions. Development
and testing of the web survey would follow well-established, documented best methods. If a
respondent could not be reached through the web, an in person or phone survey could be
conducted based on the protocols established by the Board’s vendor.
These surveys could be qualitative or quantitative in nature. It is expected that the
quantitative and some of the qualitative aspects of this survey would be conducted online.
Qualitative data collected could include questions that are categorical, yes-no, ordinal, and openended. Quantitative data collected could include dollar amounts, percentages, numbers of items,
and other such information pertaining to the financial health of the consumer.
Methods to Maximize Response
The Board expects that the respondents would include a nationally representative sample
of non-institutionalized individuals who are 18 years of age and older. Due to the nature of the
vendor’s respondent pool, this sample naturally includes a sample of re-interviewed respondents,
which would allow for evaluating changes in respondent’s economic conditions as well as time
series analysis. The specifics of the respondent pool may vary depending on the third-party
vendor selected to conduct the survey. The vendor could use incentives such as modest cash
deposits and other prizes to enhance the completion rate. In recent years, the Board has offered
all respondents $5 for completing the survey, and has offered respondents in hard to reach groups
between $15 and $25 to complete the survey. Prepaid cash incentives have been found to

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increase response rates.3 The Board has found that the tiered incentives produce response rates
that are similar across groups, reducing concerns about differential non-response bias.4
Testing of Procedures
To ensure that the questions are clearly written and would produce accurate and valid
results, the Board may conduct cognitive testing on a subset of the new or revised questions. In
2017, the Board undertook an expert review of select questions on the survey and in 2022 the
Board undertook cognitive testing of select survey questions. Cognitive testing is a wellestablished qualitative research method intended to identify problems respondents have with
comprehension of survey questions (Willis 2005)5. Efforts would be made to recruit respondents
who are demographically representative of the population being surveyed.
The Board also periodically compares results for overlapping concepts explored on the
SHED with results from other pre-existing surveys.6 These comparisons provide additional
confidence that results for questions that are unique to the SHED provide results that are reflect
the overall adult population.

3

Church, A. H. (1993). Estimating the effect of incentives on mail survey response rates: A meta-analysis. Public
Opinion Quarterly, 57, 62-79. Edwards, P., Roberts, I., Clarke, M., DiGuiseppi, C., Pratap, S., Wentz, R., and Kwan,
I. (2002). Increasing response rates to postal questionnaires: Systematic review. British Medical Journal, 324, 11831191.
4
Federal Reserve Board of Governors (2019). Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2018,
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2019-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2018-description-ofthe-survey.htm.
5
Willis, G.B. (2005). Cognitive Interviewing: A Tool for Improving Questionnaire Design. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage Publications.
6
Larrimore, J., Schmeiser, M., and Devlin-Foltz, S. (2015) Should You Trust Things You Hear Online? Comparing
SHED and Census Bureau survey results. FEDS Notes, https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/notes/fedsnotes/2015/comparing-shed-and-census-bureau-survey-results-20151015.html.

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