Archival Version

A Survey of Consumer Finances was conducted annually from 1946 through 1971 by the Economic Behavior Program. The major focus of these surveys is toward the collection of statistics on the distribution of consumer income, assets, debt, and major transactions. Interviewing was done in January-March of each year with questions covering ownership of assets and financial balances; source, purpose and amount of debt, including installment debt; and amount, earners, and source of current income, and previous year's income. Also explored are attitudes toward the respondent's personal financial situation, toward general economic conditions and prices, and expectations for the coming year. Information was sought about current and planned expenditures for housing, automobiles, and major durables. Personal characteristics reported include age and education of head, household composition, and occupation. During the mid-1960's, it became evident that the increase in car ownership was having a marked influence on the lives of American families. In order to examine these effects the data collected since 1966 were organized so that they could be analyzed on either a family or car unit basis. Data on a family-unit basis have a logical record for each family, with car information only for the first (usually the newest) car owned; data on a car-unit basis have a logical record for every car owned by the family. By using a global filter, data on a car-unit basis can also be analyzed on a family unit basis. The 1967 dataset is based on car-unit, and the frequencies included in the codebook have been filtered to a family unit basis.