Alan Greenspan Wants Your Help

May 22 -- Would you like to help Alan Greenspan determine America's monetary policy?

If so, make sure you respond to the Federal Reserve's new Survey on Consumer Finances, should you be one of the lucky 10,000 people in the United States to be randomly selected by the Fed for the survey in the next few months.

And don't worry, you won't have to fill out any forms; Fed representatives contact people and request time for phone interviews.

The Fed takes the survey every three years to mine American households for detailed data about national earning, spending and savings habits. It is beginning the project again this month.

The lengthy questionnaire covers, in extensive detail, the full range of financial issues facing Americans, including questions on spending habits, credit card use, loans and payment habits, investments, retirement accounts and retirement plans.

For instance, Greenspan, the Fed chairman, would like to know if you've ever been denied a credit card, and what effect that has had on your spending habits.

Ballot: Take Sample Survey Questions

"Although good overall information on the state of the major sectors of the economy is available regularly, our knowledge about the financial circumstances faced by different types of households is much more limited," Greenspan says in a letter to potential participants in the study. "Our survey is intended to fill a key part of this gap."

By analyzing the results, the Fed is attempting to get a better idea of the impact its decisions on interest rates have on the savings or borrowing practices of U.S. residents.

New Questions for 2001

Although the Fed has been taking the survey since 1983, the changing financial habits of Americans necessitate that it must be tinkered with from year to year, and with the country's savings rate at a historical low, some of the new questions in the 2001 survey focus on the borrowing habits of Americans.

The survey attempts to determine if respondents could, in an emergency, borrow money from friends or relatives, and also queries whether people get mortgages from lenders based in convenient locations.