As a result of the CARES Act and subsequent administrative actions, more than 25 million student loan borrowers have had suspended payments on their federal student loans for more than two years. This suspension is scheduled to end later this year, and it remains uncertain how financially ready...

This is part of a series of quarterly reports of consumer credit trends produced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau using a longitudinal, nationally-representative sample of approximately five million de-identified credit records maintained by one of the three nationwide consumer...

The data that mortgage lending institutions reported for 2008 under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA) reflect the ongoing difficulties in the housing and mortgage markets. This article presents a number of key findings from an initial review of the 2008 HMDA data. In particular, it...

Student loans make up an increasing share of consumer debt in the U.S., particularly for younger borrowers. Research has shown that borrowers vary greatly in their ability to pay off their loans, and in how quickly they can do so. This Data Point provides a closer look at borrowers' use of...

Public subsidization of private goods often leads to crowd-out, reducing private spending. This effect is intended for a policy like the 2008 Lifeline phone subsidy expansion, which aimed to increase affordable access to services. Using state-level timing variation, I estimate that the expansion...

This paper studies how compliance behavior varies across competing service providers in the Lifeline phone subsidy program and assesses whether enlarging the set of providers improves program outcomes. In markets where firms compete to provide government benefits or services directly to...

Since the 2000s, economists across fields have increasingly used consumer credit reporting data for research. We introduce readers to the economics of and the institutional details of these data. Using examples from the literature, we provide practical guidance on how to use these data to...