Information on current financial difficulties- November 2022

Thank you for your email of 21 October 2022, concerning the FCA’s Financial Lives 2022 survey as reported in the Sky News article.

Today I read on Sky News a story about the financial difficulties people are finding themselves in at the moment, one section stood out to me:

The research also found that 27% of black people said they found it a heavy burden to keep up with bills - almost double that seen in the general population, which stood at 15%.

Under FOI, I would like to know what colour the other 73% are of people who said they found it a heavy burden to keep up with bills, and why they haven't been broken down statistically by colour.

Question 1 – about the ‘73%’

Our publication stated as follows: Black adults were also almost twice as likely to have said that they find keeping up with their domestic bills and credit commitments to be a heavy burden (27%, compared with 15% of all UK adults).

Regarding the above statistic, Sky News correctly reported that ‘27% of black people said they found it a heavy burden to keep up with bills.

In response to your question, we would like to clarify that the 27% is relative to the total population of Black adults, and not the whole UK population, ie. the other 73% were Black adults who did not find it a heavy burden to keep up with domestic bills and credit commitments.

We understand that you are interested in a breakdown of the data by ethnicity; therefore, please note the following:

• 27% of Black adults felt that keeping up with their domestic bills and credit commitments was a heavy burden – and the same was true for 14% of White adults, 17% of Asian adults, and 25% of adults with Mixed/ multiple ethnicity.
• Of all adults who felt that keeping up with their domestic bills and credit commitments was a heavy burden, the breakdown by ethnicity is as follows: 82% - White, 5% - Black, 8% - Asian, 4% - Mixed/multiple ethnicity, and 1% - Other.

Question 2 – about breaking down results statistically by colour

We only shared a sample of our findings in our publication, so that we could share some important results but also keep the article short and impactful.

Our publication does, however, provide access to fuller details of the kind you request. In section 7 of our publication, we shared a link to a set of data tables (ie. ‘Download an early slim volume of data tables’) – for the full results by ethnicity for the ‘heavy burden result’, please see Table 1 (rows 16-19 & columns EH to FK) on the ‘Figure8’ tab.

It may also be of interest to you to note that in early 2023, we will be publishing a full report on our Financial Lives 2022 survey.