Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.
The Aspen Institute Financial Security Program takes a holistic, systemic approach to understanding how households function in today’s financial reality. We ask difficult—and sometimes entirely new—questions about the resources that families have and the resources they need to thrive. And as part of our research, we convene researchers, leaders, policymakers, philanthropists, and community members to reveal insights and evidence that can drive action.
Our Focus
Our big questions revolve around how people afford daily life and how they build wealth—two critical components for a household’s financial security.
Affordability and Shocks
In the current era of rising costs and shrinking safety nets, Americans are struggling to make ends meet. Our recent work aims to develop a more granular understanding of financial shocks, which can cycle households into precarity, even when their typical income exceeds their typical expenses. In any given year, nearly 7 in 10 households experience a significant unexpected expense shock, and 3 in 10 experience a significant income shock.
Wealth lies at the intersection of three different elements: liquid savings, total net worth, and a subjective sense of security and well-being. Together, they constitute a path to “essential wealth,” a new and necessary metric for household financial sufficiency. This metric accounts for needs and opportunities across different stages of life, and clarifies goals for programmatic, policy, and investment outcomes.
As our research revealed, three out of four U.S. households do not have enough cash savings and net worth to support current stability and future prosperity. Because wealth currently surpasses work as a means of creating this kind of economic security, much of our work centers on ways to create opportunities for ownership.
Learn more about how you can support the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program through a philanthropic grant, tax-deductible gift, or event sponsorship.
