Research and reports

The Building Blocks Measurement Guide provides a means of assessing young people’s progress toward acquiring the foundations of financial capability. 

In this series of research briefs, the Bureau’s Office of Research and Division of Consumer Education and Engagement examine whether encouraging mortgage shopping benefits consumers.

The Bureau, along with its partners at the Federal Trade Commission, is pleased to submit to Congress its seventh annual report summarizing their 2017 activities to administer the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”).

The CFPB held the Youth Employment Success Roundtable in 2017 to give youth employment programs the opportunity to share their learning, elevate the challenges they experience in supporting financial knowledge and skill development for young workers, and to provide input on the CFPB’s Youth Employment Success initiative. This report summarizes key insights and potential next steps generated during the event. 

The purpose of this report is to raise awareness about the issues that limited English proficient consumers face when participating in the financial marketplace.

This report shares findings from qualitative interviews with consumers about their experiences with overdraft programs and fees.

The 2017 Financial Literacy Annual Report is a statutorily mandated report to Congress on the Bureau’s activities and strategy to improve the financial capability and well-being of consumers. 

A brief on credit invisibility, implications for consumers, and steps that communities can take to help consumers build or rebuild their credit. 

This report presents the findings of a national survey that examined the financial well-being of U.S. adults. The report shows the distribution of financial well-being scores for the U.S. adult population and for selected subgroups.

The CFPB has identified ten promising practices for tax assistance providers to help people save when filing their taxes.

This report provides an overview of the 2017 Financial Coaching Symposium, including lessons learned and next steps for the field to consider. 

There is no single right way to help adults improve financial decision-making, just as there is no single right way everyone should conduct their financial lives. This report, reflecting research and input from the field, presents five principles for effective financial education.

This report describes CFPB research on ways to help people make decisions for spending their retirement savings. The study explored ways to communicate retirement spending options, whether it is years before retirement or “just in time” when retirement is near.

This technical report describes the development and scoring procedures of the CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale. 

This report introduces the Office of Servicemember Affairs’ new focus: charting the financial issues a servicemember faces throughout his or her military career. 

This report provides a recommended core set of five financial outcomes for programs to track. The purpose is to assist the field of financial capability and empowerment in creating some commonality in outcomes to measure across a variety of different programs.

Financial education in grades K-12 can reach consumers at a pivotal point. This resource guide connects community and education leaders with information, insights, and best practices for advancing financial capability.

Rules-based educational messages are low-cost and scalable, and can be effective. Exposure to a guideline reminding consumers to be cognizant of credit card usage led to lower card balances among consumers who carry a balance.

This report describes CFPB research on approaches to helping consumers manage their spending, such as approaches that would give consumers real-time feedback on their spending at the point of purchase.

The CFPB researched the childhood origins of financial capability and well-being to identify those roots and to find promising practices and strategies to support their development.

The 2016 Financial Literacy Annual Report is a statutorily mandated report to Congress on the Bureau’s activities and strategy to improve the financial capability and well-being of consumers.

These two reports summarize the findings of a rigorous evaluation of financial coaching and discuss the implications for financial education practitioners.

We’ve released a new report on our findings for how young people can acquire three building blocks of financial capability which include: executive function, financial habits and norms, and financial knowledge and decision-making skills. Read on to find strategies for educators, policymakers, and parents.

The CFPB issued this report to raise visibility about the financial education challenges that many immigrants face and to highlight promising approaches to help immigrants improve their financial well-being.

This report describes the findings of consumer focus groups and consumer complaint data about the challenges of navigating the auto financing process. We found that many consumers reported they did not shop around and negotiate as much for the financing as they did for the vehicle itself.  The complaint data showed that consumers faced challenges in understanding loan features during negotiations on financing.