Released quarterly, the ACLI Financial Resilience Index measures the direction and magnitude of middle-class financial resilience by tracking 26 different variables that represent important middle-class cost pressures and financial resources.
The Headline Index is composed of a Cost Resilience Index and a Resource Resilience Index. A score above 0 means that financial resilience is above historical norms.
The Cost Resilience Index measures the ability to afford modest luxuries without trading off the essentials and to afford life-stage appropriate care and education.
The Resource Resilience Index measures the ability to handle unexpected expenses and sustain a quality of life, and the ability to save and live well in retirement.
The index frames financial resilience as the interaction of cost pressures and financial resources and provides insight into the specific underlying factors that drive changes in middle-class financial resilience. Consumer survey findings (featured in the full index and analysis) offer a snapshot as to how middle-class households are feeling.
