Commonwealth’s Financial Resilience Project: COVID Stories, Rapid Insights closely tracks the financial lives of low- and moderate-income households over the course of several months. Our project follows 56 households from 24 states across the United States to gain rapid insights in near real-time on how people living on low to moderate incomes (LMI) are navigating the crisis. Read more about the study here.

In our latest round of Financial Resilience Project interviews, Commonwealth spoke with participants about their perceptions of the roles of government, employers, financial institutions, and credit card companies. We asked households how these institutions featured in their financial lives during the COVID-19 crisis, and what role they would like these institutions to play in the future.

Participants offered a range of different perceptions partially based on the type of assistance institutions provided and the relevance of the institution to their financial lives. Our analysis also highlighted the often complex relationships households living on LMI have with these institutions.

A Lighthouse in the Storm: The Role of Institutions During COVID-19, the fourth in our Financial Resilience Project brief series, shares our latest insights on how LMI households perceive institutions during the crisis and highlights the ways institutions can support these households as the crisis continues. Some of our key findings:

• Government was perceived to play a central role, however perceptions were divided; government received high marks for financial assistance, but low marks for communication.
• Employers received mixed reviews; many currently employed participants desire more transparent and direct communication about the future of their jobs.
• Across institutions, households perceive institutions to be lacking in their communication and want more personalized support and guidance, which they perceive as being best delivered by another human being.

With virus case numbers currently resurging in the United States, unemployment rising and a lack of new government aid, households face more uncertainty going into the end of year. Our analysis points to major opportunities for all of these institutions to better support households with lower incomes through the remainder of the crisis. Read the brief to learn how government, employers, financial institutions, and credit card companies can support households living on LMI in building financial resilience now and beyond COVID-19.

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