RESEARCH_FILE
Jonathan Morduch
NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
Known for:Co-founding the U.S. Financial Diaries project and showing that income volatility, not just income level, drives financial stress
SEE THE PRACTICE
Turn a thought this research explains into one clear move.
THE THOUGHT
“What if no one hires me next month?”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“A quiet week is a gap, not a prediction.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Spend five minutes gathering the last twelve months of invoices or deposits into one view, then mark three months that followed a slow spell. Keep it private; no editing, no decisions, just the record.
Key findings
- 2015
With Anthony Hannagan, finds that financial-diaries households averaged 2.7 income spikes and 2.7 dips a year, each roughly half a typical month's income — and that job loss and job changes explained almost none of this volatility. Income Gains and Income Volatility: Household Evidence from the US Financial Diaries ↗
- 2017
With Rachel Schneider, documents in The Financial Diaries how families of all income levels cope with volatility through constant, largely invisible juggling of bills, borrowing, and savings — not through simply earning more. The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty ↗
- 2017
Shows that for households above 150% of the poverty line, smoothing within-job income variability — the everyday spikes and dips — would cut episodes of poverty roughly in half, independent of any change in yearly average income. In and Out of Poverty: Episodic Poverty and Income Volatility in the U.S. Financial Diaries ↗