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Laura Rowley Money & Happiness

Laura Rowley, Money & Happiness

High Anxiety: Americans' Top Financial Fears Revealed

by Laura Rowley

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Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008, 12:00AM

A new survey by Yahoo! Finance and Decipher Inc. finds that the vast majority of Americans are suffering from high anxiety about the broader economy and personal financial issues ranging from job insecurity to soaring food and energy prices to consumer debt.

A Catalog of Fears

Decipher polled 2,000 adults about their financial anxieties earlier this month. Among the findings:

• The rising cost of living is the No. 1 concern. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they were "very worried" about inflation, and another 30 percent were "somewhat worried." Nearly three-quarters were concerned that their salaries won't keep up with rising costs, including food and gasoline; half of those polled expressed similar concerns about health-care costs. And more than a third said they were somewhat or very worried because their rent consumes at least half their household income.

• Consumers are also fearful about the economic downturn and job insecurity. Eighty-eight percent are worried about recession; 38 percent are concerned about being laid off from their jobs. Nearly two-thirds are worried about the stock market decline.

• Consumer debt is a significant trouble spot. Among the two-thirds of respondents who carry revolving credit card debt, 63 percent were worried they have too much. Among people with student loan debt, 55 percent are troubled by the amount they carry; among consumers with outstanding medical bills, half say they are worried they can't pay them. And 40 percent of homeowners with a home equity loan or line of credit are anxious that they can't afford the payments.

• The housing crisis is causing distress. Among homeowners, one-quarter were somewhat or very worried that they may be foreclosed on; 45 percent are concerned that rising property taxes could force them from their homes; and half are anxious because their homes require basic maintenance or repairs they can't afford. More than half are worried about falling home prices and their homes losing value.

• Consumers are anxious about savings. Some 58 percent are somewhat or very worried because they have nothing saved for retirement and can't afford to save -- the figure was 70 percent among people age 31 to 50. More than one-third are worried because they have nothing saved for college.

Reason to Be Nervous

In his new book "High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families," Peter Gosselin argues that the burgeoning sense of financial insecurity is more than "a nation of whiners" in a "mental recession," as former senator Phil Gramm put it earlier this month.

"There is plenty of evidence that objective circumstances are causing Americans to report the kind of things in the survey," says Gosselin, a Los Angeles Times economics reporter. "They were there before we got in the current mess, and people have plenty of objective reasons to be nervous now."

Safety nets that supported working families in previous generations -- employer-provided health benefits, affordable housing, college and retirement savings -- have steadily eroded, Gosselin explains.

"Many of risks have been handed over in ways that people didn't notice, and requires them to do jobs that are spectacularly complex," explains Gosselin. "We need to be our own investment bankers for retirement and college savings, insurance brokers to understand our homeowners' policies, and lawyers to understand all the documents that get handed to us. It's not that we can't do these jobs -- but people have lives to lead and don't do lots of these jobs."

No Simple Matter

For example, in his book Gosselin interviews several Nobel Laureates in economics about how they handled their own retirement portfolios, and found they made the same mistakes as the average investor. "It turns out that [retirement investing] doesn't just paralyze ordinary mortals, but also the Nobel Prize winners who came up with the theories we're supposed to use to make these decisions," says Gosselin.

Moreover, consumers are operating in markets that are so lightly regulated, even the person who becomes a "specialist" and figures out how to invest his 401(k) plan must also be a watchdog, and determine if the plan is ripping him off with egregious hidden fees. When consumers do get hurt by a health insurer who arbitrarily rejects a claim, or a 401(k) plan administrator that fails to follow their instructions, they face a Herculean fight for justice.

Free-Market Chaos

Gosselin cites the Supreme Court decision earlier this year in LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Associates. In that case, James LaRue had instructed his 401(k) plan to change the investments in his portfolio, but the administrator never carried out his request -- resulting in a $150,000 loss between 2001 and 2002. LaRue sued for a breach of fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), but the lower courts ruled he couldn't sue to recover his losses because they didn't affect all or a large number of plan participants. The Supreme Court later reversed those decisions.

"Here's a case of a person who judged the risk, made a decision, ordered it to be executed, and they didn't do it," says Gosselin. "And until the Supreme Court came along and said ‘maybe a company does have some obligation to respond to the direct orders of somebody,' this guy was out the money.

"Financial markets are wonderful, they innovate like crazy, but they can also cheat like crazy, and the reason you have regulation is to be sure they stay within human bounds -- and we haven't done it for a generation," says Gosselin. "We took this free-market credo and we let basically our employers, our insurers, and our real estate agents run right off the end of the pier with it -- and we're the ones stuck with the consequences."

Commerce vs. Trust

Along with broader financial issues, the Yahoo! Finance survey also found a huge number of consumers troubled by their everyday transactions. Three-quarters of those polled said they're somewhat or very worried "that most retail and service companies play games with pricing and it's hard to get a fair deal."

"Companies have abandoned the whole idea of pricing," says Bob Sullivan, author of "Gotcha Capitalism: How Hidden Fees Rip You Off Every Day -- and What You Can Do About It." "There will be one price on the store window, one that the [salesperson will quote] you, and they always tack on stuff afterward. There is an awful lot of animosity between consumers and the stores that service them. I think it's a genuine threat not just to civility, but the way the economy functions -- any kind of commerce involves trust."

Next week: Some solutions to the biggest financial anxieties uncovered by the survey.

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  • fan - Monday, July 28, 2008, 11:11PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    1929 to 2009---80 years later and it is going to happen again. Thank you, Wall St. I guess we never learn?

  • scarf - Monday, July 28, 2008, 9:04PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Recessions are part of the normal economic cycle. Back in the mid 70's we had the same fears that American economic supremacy would give way, at that time to Japan. Since then we've had a period of unprecedented growth for US and weakness for Japan. I think the same will be true vis a vis the emerging markets today to the extent that we are able to maintain our free market system and not fall prey to media propaganda. One other side note - I don't see how that author could make a hero of some idiot who didn't check his 401K for 2 years and then sued the plan manager. They may have been incompetent but it was his responsibility to make sure everything went through all right. And don't tell me we're all too busy to spend a couple hours a month keeping our affairs in order, that is also ridiculous.

  • Da Big Guy - Monday, July 28, 2008, 3:31PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Simple equation. The majority of Americans earn less than what is needed to maintain an adequate standard of living. Under this scenario "Gotcha Capitalism" thrives. Polls can be manipulated to say just about anything, but facts will always trump the smoke and mirrors. Wall Street take notice!

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, July 28, 2008, 2:22PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    Still, the big problem is that so quickly our country has bought so much with personal debt. Our grandparents from the depression era couldn't fathom all the debt we have brought uponselves all in the name of ipods, Wiis, new cars, and bigger homes. Sad thing is that none of that really makes us any happier, just poorer in the long run. So this article is right in that we have some looming financial difficulties, but a lot of that of that has been brought on by trying to fulfill our own personal desires with money we didn't have then or now.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, July 28, 2008, 4:01AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    right on the money, you hit the mark

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 11:00PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    The beauty of the economy is that most people don't even realize how bad they have it. Expectations have gotten so low in this country. The middle-class life has deteriorated so much but so many people don't have anything to compare it to so they don't know about it. I find it hilarious how we have so many in this country who criticize countries like France where the quality of life for an ordinary person are leaps and bounds better than ours here. They earn more money on a purchasing power basis, they work only 35 hours per week, and they vacation at least 6 weeks out of the year. Not only that but their typical weekend trips are equivalent to the "yearly" trips of many Americans. Middle-class people here have a hard time just getting the time and money for little domestic trips, while throughout Europe and developed Asia middle-class people travel internationally all the time. Face it, we in America live in a wealthy economy but 95% of people here live 2nd-class lifestyles compared to the rest of the developed world. For the first time since the Depression the average American's income has actually gone down adjusted for inflation. This has happened over the last decade, it is an amazing statistic if you think about it. The shift of wealth to the top 1% (or even top 0.1%) coupled with the transfer of American wealth to the Mid-East and Asia has been done on the backs of the average American.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 8:53PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    The people who belittle this poll must be living in Lala land. If they only constantly read the CNNMoney news they would know that everyday the GMs, Fords, banks, stocks have all gone down the last six months. These are the same people that a couple of years ago kept saying that there was no housing bubble. Lalala.

  • JohnH - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 7:25PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Another example of lazy journalism--trying to create news by taking a poll which was probably biased and nudged respondents toward the answers the pollsters wanted.

  • Guy - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 5:41PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    When I see statistics and surveys such as this I wish that the stats could be put into some kind of context. Such as how do these responses compare with previous times of prosperity and anxiety? Have dour statistics such as this proven to be predictive of economic slides in the past? One recent statistic I found compelling was that 1% of the wealthiest Americans now own 22% of the country's wealth. The last time that the wealthiest had owned this much of the country's wealth - 1929. When tax cuts are handed out to everyone, but not equally, does everyone benefit!? I hope people will keep this in mind when they look back and wonder what happened to create so much economic inequality in America (I believe that economic inequality is going to get much worse).

  • gert - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 5:33PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    People keep spending money they dont have run up credit cards live like theirs no problem. Wake up all of us we are in deeper than a recession not many jobs housing problems. our tax money going to bail out mortgage companys etc. America is going kaput.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 1:28PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Wow, you really knocked yourself out with statistics from a survey. This could have been condensed into a bullet like format and not wasted our time with your verbage to pretend like you were writing something. You can now be replaced with a machine. Goodbye.

  • BigPapaStew - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 12:31PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    In case anyone wants to actually know what the word means. re·ces·sion 1 Audio Help (rĭ-sěsh'ən) Pronunciation Key n. The act of withdrawing or going back. An extended decline in general business activity, typically two consecutive quarters of falling real gross national product. And no GDP hasn't decreased at all yet. Our economy is still growing. Who knows if we will enter a recession, but we are not in one yet. (at least the end of Q1 had positive growth and Q2 looks like it too)

  • dtifft - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 3:42AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    It's mostly upper-middle class workers who are particularly worried, and rightfully so. They are the one who have the farthest to fall economically, since nowadays upper-level income workers tend to be high specialized. In other words, these ones are so highly specialized that they can’t easily find good-paying alternative work if they lose their current positions.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 2:34AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    Great article, but worrying won't solve the problem. Personal responsibility and education are the keys to financial security. Stop buying what the financial institutions are selling you and wise up. Learn how to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in mortgage interest with a Mortgage Savings Account while increasing liquidity. The internet makes financial education so easy and cheap. If you aren't familiar with MSA's, then google "Mortgage Savings Account" and start learning how to beat the financial institutions at their own game.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Sunday, July 27, 2008, 12:25AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    In general, people are stupid and they contradict what they say in surveys. People are worried because they can't handle economic downturns. People think bubble periods are the norm and returns to historical norms are a recession. When answering surveys, people give the answers they think the questioner wants to hear because peoples' actions don't match their words. Everyone's worried but they're still spending and not saving. To me that means they can't be too worried.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 11:00PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    My sister recently spoke to me about her situation in trying to get money in a 403B at a job she left several years ago transfered into an IRA. I have been self-employed and had to manage my own money all my life so I was horrified at what she told me and what I saw when she showed me the so-called choices of a big name life ins/mutual fund company that were the choices of the job where she had worked. First HR of her old company told her she could not get access to her own money without a broker which they would of course give her. The guy sold her a variable annuity to put the product of this same company as an IRA inside of. I told her to threaten him with legal action and the next day he tore up the paperwork. I mean an IRA inside an annuity... She finally got the life ins/mutual fund company to transfer her 403B to an IRA within their same company. ALL of their choices for employees in this non-profit organization except for a money market fund had 5.5% sales fee (yeah 5.5% I kid you not) and ALL that I checked have a 12b-1 back end fee. This is criminal. There must be payoffs and kick backs. I mean if these employees wanted to participate in saving for retirement thru their company this mess was their ONLY choice. I personally had to learn a lot about this because I really had no choice but really people are told retirement is their own responsibility and take advantage of employer sponsored retirement plans, but really who is taking advantage of who?

  • Slugabug - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 9:30PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    The horse is already out of the barn! It's too late to close the door! We needed someone yelling at the top of their lungs 5 years ago that buying crap with the equity in your home is a bad idea. Would anyone have listened though? The new "Mortgage Rescue" bill is a bad idea. If banks are going to reduce the balance of millions of loans and refinance them at lower rates, who pays for the write off of those losses? What implications does that have for the value of the dollar? Will you be able to fit enough dollars in your wallet to buy 1 gallon of gas? These are important questions that our elected leaders need to be answering now.

  • adam - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 8:22PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    This goes to much greater lengths than the real estate sector, bank failures, outsourcing jobs... This is about the deceit of the U.S. dollar since 1913 with the Federal Reserve. President Bush has injected remarkable amounts of fiat money into the system, but he didn't have much of a choice because of timing. Let's go back and look at Kontrateiff wave theory, in conjunction with our fiat economy, we are headed for a depression. The only way to revive the massive accumulated debt we have is to irraticate the dollar or simply merge canada and mexico, along with the amero backed by silver to rehabilitate a stable marketplace. Buy commodoties, gold, land, tangible items to hedge and protect yourself.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 8:08PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Just a comment on the 401k, I have one with my employer that for the most part I am happy with. I opened a roth IRA with the same company (because I have more control of the money through that) One thing I noticed is it seems as though they will sometimes hold my contributions for the max 2 weeks until the market suits them wherever it may fall in those two weeks. How the contribution is allocated to my portfolio is the price of the fund at the end of the closing day it is contributed. So if they put it in at the begining of the day while the fund is cheap and it closes higher I lose because they bought it cheaper...and that seems to be the trend with the contributions, occasionally it works in my favor but I believe they time it as such, and here is why; if I look at the market for the day and it starts low and has a good rise in the first half of the day it will go in, and sometimes by the close it crashes back lower in which case I win, but more times than not it doesn't work like that...and it just ticks me off. Why can't that be regulated so it is regular (I would rather the previous weeks contributions go in a week later on a consistent level, so there is no question) aside isn't in their best interest for expense ratios to make sure I have the largest portfolio in the end? Not nickel and diming me for $2-5 by buying it cheaper and telling me I paid more for it...?

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 1:04PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    ""Financial markets are wonderful, they innovate like crazy, but they can also cheat like crazy, and the reason you have regulation is to be sure they stay within human bounds -- and we haven't done it for a generation," says Gosselin. "We took this free-market credo and we let basically our employers, our insurers, and our real estate agents run right off the end of the pier with it -- and we're the ones stuck with the consequences." This is RIGHT ON THE MONEY. I am sick and tired of all the talking heads at CNBC and CNN talking up the "free market" like it's some kind perfect solution to everything...it's PEOPLE making decisions! At the extreme, if you let everything go and just subject everything to the "free market", eventually it would sort things out...but only after WILD swings one way and then the other. I am at heart a free marketeer, but you have to make sure the rules of the game are followed and that is the role of govt...to turn those exaggerated swings into more managable fluctuations by making sure that the rules are followed.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 11:45AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    Many employers 401K & 4013B practices are terrible, no one to question the employers. Certainly when employees question, their job could be at risk, I have that problem now and had it in the past. Employers are not responsible for their actions, they can choose poor performing funds, not execute transactions, execute transactions without your knowledge, pick poor performing funds with high expenses, some times expenses are more than the returns, and you are not allowed to move your money to a better place, they lock your money down for as long as you work there. There is a conflict of interest here. In all probability there must be immense fraud. What is motivating employers to choose poor funds at high expenses, are the human resources employees or others up in the ladder getting payouts or benefits from the companies that are providing these funds in 401k/403B?? Most employees have most of their money in 401k/403b plans, their life savings. Employers are put in charge of these huge balances without any responsibility for losses or fees. Employees should have freedom with their money to move to better location for better returns with lower expenses. We need to go back to traditional pension plans that many employees used to have, employers were responsible for their actions with traditional pension plans. Fraud needs to be uncovered and reform is needed as soon as possible.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 10:07AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    I fear most that so many mutual fund managers are having it so rough these days. Maybe congress can help. Maybe all managers could be sent to Washington at tax payers expense to view our congress at work. After realizing how lame congress really is these mutual fund managers would feel so much better about their own hopeless stupidity.

  • NEO - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 3:17AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Well, it's plain simple. People spent 150% of what they made, by using their credit cards, bought "0% down.." houses and then refinanced/credit-lined them again and again to pay those balances on those many credit cards..... NOW, THE REAL DISASTER IS: the houses values are going/coming down..the loans/mortgages on them are higher then their worth..the RE taxes are up..the Cards are inflated with outrageous balances...AND there is NO money coming from anywhere... THE REAL problem is not the mortgages, people!! it's those credit cards debt which are ten times folds the so-called sub-prime BS... just wait and see. For the sake of your children and maybe yours, if lucky - LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS !! - If you remember what it means at all. We all know it, but still we let all those speculants pee on us and tell us that it's "just raining a little.." Be proud but don't be fooled. Would love to discuss it some more. NEO

  • Rick - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 12:58AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Excellent aticle.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, July 26, 2008, 12:16AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    Hopefully the big spenders have enough left on their credit cards for ulcer medicine. Or maybe they can curl up in the master bedroom of their soon to be foreclosed McMansion, with their blankie in hand and a thumb in their mouth while they fantasize about the great times they had and all the crap they bought on credit. In the meantime the bankers and Wall Street thieves are living high on the hog from enabling your over the top life style. I have to disagree with a previous poster who said Americans have made Wall Streeters richer than their wildest dreams. Not even close. The dream of Wall Street is to take every penny you have and they will never rest until they get it.

  • r - Friday, July 25, 2008, 10:56PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    What a bunch of whiners. You've made alot of guys on Wall Street rich beyond their dreams. Now get back to work!

  • me - Friday, July 25, 2008, 10:30PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    With all the crap I've been reading on the blogs the last few days, I have to say I am REALLY happy that i spent my youth in the 70's and 80's because back then, no one had so many sticks up their a***s. You could smoke wherever you wanted, you could buy stuff because even with some of the double digit inflation and interest back in the 80's, the prices on goods and real estate were still affordable to average people. I paid about $10,000 for a fully loaded Buick Riviera back in 81. I paid 18% interest for 3 years, and I still paid less than I did for the last car I bought. So I'm really glad I partied, and spent and had a blast, because nowadays, you can't fart without someone telling you that it's either politically incorrect, or hazerdous to their health. I plan to stay away from all these idiots out there who run around saying 'The sky is falling' and plastering fear on the nightly news.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, July 25, 2008, 8:44PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    The article says 88 percent are worried about a coming recession? We are in a recession morons. And we wont know until we are out of it. And people are worried they have too much credit card debt? Good for them. Let them be worried. They deserve to be worried. They shouldnt of spent like drunken sailors. People are so dumb in this country. Everyone has new cars that are fully financed, the new iphone, they eat out every day, spend hundred on overpriced alcohol, and they complain about stuff. Barely anyone in this country owns anything. Everyone is a fat loser who is gross. And i love the part in the article where it says people are scared they might be foreclosed on. People dont forclose you, you forclose yourself!!! And if you didnt lie on your income and werent an idiot, you would be in a house to big for your income. People like you just wanted to jump on the bandwagon and now your the idiots holding the bag. I dont feel bad for anyone that has 10k in credit card debt and in a house they cant afford. You should of rented. But noooooooo, you had to be like everyone else. Now the smart people like myself will buy your forclosed piece of crap that you overpaid for. The biggest transfer of wealth is going to be from all the losers, to smart investors like myself who dont get tricked into stuff by brokers.

  • Flyer1 - Friday, July 25, 2008, 7:43PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    This is one of the best articles I have read on Yahoo. The statement about how "spectacularly complex," our world is, is very appropriate if you think about what you need to know to get by and have even a modest lifestyle. Trust in government and business leaders is all but gone. They are both conspiring against the working class. They sell us out everyday. I find myself wondering if it would be better to move to Europe and raise my family there. The Republicans constantly call the Democrats "liberals". I think the opposite is true. I do not think they have a clue what being conservative really means. Nothing they do is conservative by any means. To them it means let the wealthy corporations do whatever they want with total disregard for our nation and our people. I am really offended at what Phil Gramm said. Who actually votes for this clown? It really drives the point home that we are in a class war. I fear our own leaders more than any terrorist attack. No terrorist could have attacked us more ruthlessly over the past years than our own bankers.

  • USA P - Friday, July 25, 2008, 7:15PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    All the fears listed are mostly from the federal reserve system. Why should a small, secretive, unelected, unaccountable, unchecked, bankers given god-like powers in the first place? Why does America have to BORROW? To whom do the USA owe anyway? If we can get our heads out of the gutter, we call news, and ask these fundamental questions first, we should realize that the fed, or a central banks existence should be in question. The power of the currency belongs to the us treasury using a gold standard (please research it before you start judging), not to elite family owned banks. No wonder we have inflation, deflation, wars, debt, excessive taxation, corruption, and rule of law in constant challenged. It's time we re-look what the roll of government should be and ask WHY DOES THE FED EXIST?

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