Income uncertainty and precautionary savings before and after the Great Recession

Precautionary savings is important in helping households to weather short-term fluctuations in income and expenses. While many papers have previously estimated the effect of income uncertainty on savings, this paper examines the possibility that the precautionary savings motive changes in response to the macroeconomic environment. This paper uses data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) before and after the most recent recession to estimate the effect of income uncertainty on emergency savings through the use of logit and OLS regression models. The results show that after the recession, people without income certainty for the following year see their savings decline significantly; those with income certainty for the following year see their savings stay flat or even increase. This suggests that there may be an additional precautionary savings motivation that is cued by the recession as people become more alert to the potential need for emergency savings. However, only some groups are actually able to act on this motive to maintain or increase savings, since some are already feeling the negative effects of the recession on the household level. This paper generally highlights the need for more policy attention to the gap in short-term emergency savings. Additionally, the results suggest that particular attention should be focused on helping people take advantage of good financial years to build an emergency savings buffer.