Americans' Net Worth Has Recovered to Pre-COVID Levels: Fed

The Fed's report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households, based on a survey of several thousand adults in July, showed that 22% of adults who had been laid off during the pandemic were no longer employed and didn't expect to return to their old jobs, up from 7% in April. 

About one-quarter of laid-off workers with family incomes under $40,000 reported they had returned to their earlier job compared with 40% of laid-off workers with family incomes over $100,000. 

Financial assistance programs helped families suffering from job loss or pay cuts. Nearly one in four adults said they had received assistance from unemployment insurance, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or free groceries and/or meals from charitable organizations since the start of the pandemic. Five percent of homeowners and renters reported receiving deductions or deferrals of their payments.

These different types of assistance helped boost the financial security of families. Seventy-seven percent of adults reported they were financially secure in June, up from 72% in April and 75% in October, before the pandemic hit.

In his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell noted that "employment and overall economic activity … remain well below their pre-pandemic levels, and the path ahead continues to be highly uncertain and the downturn has fallen unequally."

Powell added that "the rise in joblessness has been especially severe for lower-wage workers, for women, and for African Americans and Hispanics."

He noted, as he has many times before, that "the path forward will depend on keeping the virus under control, and on policy actions taken at all levels of government," suggesting again that more financial relief is needed from Congress while the Fed remains committed to using its own tools "to do what we can, for as long as it takes, to ensure that the recovery will be as strong as possible, and to limit lasting damage to the economy."