Because aggregate data consistently indicated that the crisis was having severe negative effects on households, the Federal Reserve thought a follow-up survey of 2007 survey participants would offer a unique opportunity to understand the impact of the financial crisis on individual families and the resulting changes in the financial decisions and outlooks of those families.
Although we are only beginning to mine the data, I believe the richer understanding of individual circumstances provided by the data set will prove invaluable in its ability to help us understand how consumers are approaching a number of important decisions, such as spending, saving, and wealth accumulation.