[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 91 (Monday, May 11, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 27742-27743]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-09940]


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FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM


Proposed Agency Information Collection Activities; Comment 
Request

AGENCY: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

ACTION: Notice, request for comment.

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SUMMARY: The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) 
invites comment on a proposal to extend, for three years, with 
revision, the ad hoc clearance for the Survey of Household Economics 
and Decisionmaking (SHED) (FR 3077; OMB No. 7100-0374).

DATES: Comments must be submitted on or before July 10, 2020.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by FR 3077, by any of 
the following methods:
     Agency Website: https://www.federalreserve.gov/. Follow 
the instructions for submitting comments at https://www.federalreserve.gov/apps/foia/proposedregs.aspx.
     Email: [email protected]. Include the OMB 
number in the subject line of the message.
     Fax: (202) 452-3819 or (202) 452-3102.
     Mail: Ann E. Misback, Secretary, Board of Governors of the 
Federal Reserve System, 20th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, 
Washington, DC 20551.
    All public comments are available from the Board's website at 
https://www.federalreserve.gov/apps/foia/proposedregs.aspx as 
submitted, unless modified for technical reasons or to remove 
personally identifiable information at the commenter's request. 
Accordingly, comments will not be edited to remove any identifying or 
contact information. Public comments may also be viewed electronically 
or in paper in Room 146, 1709 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20006, 
between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on weekdays. For security reasons, the 
Board requires that visitors make an appointment to inspect comments. 
You may do so by calling (202) 452-3684. Upon arrival, visitors will be 
required to present valid government-issued photo identification and to 
submit to security screening in order to inspect and photocopy 
comments.
    Additionally, commenters may send a copy of their comments to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Desk Officer--Shagufta Ahmed--
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and 
Budget, New Executive Office Building, Room 10235, 725 17th Street NW, 
Washington, DC 20503, or by fax to (202) 395-6974.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: A copy of the Paperwork Reduction Act 
(PRA) OMB submission, including the reporting form and instructions, 
supporting statement, and other documentation will be placed into OMB's 
public docket files, if approved. These documents will also be made 
available on the Board's public website at https://www.federalreserve.gov/apps/reportforms/review.aspx or may be requested 
from the agency clearance officer, whose name appears below.
    Federal Reserve Board Clearance Officer--Nuha Elmaghrabi--Office of 
the Chief Data Officer, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve 
System, Washington, DC 20551, (202) 452-3829.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On June 15, 1984, OMB delegated to the Board 
authority under the PRA to approve and assign OMB control numbers to 
collections of information conducted or sponsored by the Board. In 
exercising this delegated authority, the Board is directed to take 
every reasonable step to solicit comment. In determining whether to 
approve a collection of information, the Board will consider all 
comments received from the public and other agencies.

Request for Comment on Information Collection Proposal

    The Board invites public comment on the following information 
collection, which is being reviewed under authority delegated by the 
OMB under the PRA. Comments are invited on the following:
    a. Whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for 
the proper performance of the Board's functions, including whether the 
information has practical utility;
    b. The accuracy of the Board's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed information collection, including the validity of the 
methodology and assumptions used;
    c. Ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the 
information to be collected;
    d. Ways to minimize the burden of information collection on 
respondents, including through the use of automated collection 
techniques or other forms of information technology; and
    e. Estimates of capital or startup costs and costs of operation, 
maintenance, and purchase of services to provide information.
    At the end of the comment period, the comments and recommendations 
received will be analyzed to determine

[[Page 27743]]

the extent to which the Board should modify the proposal.

Proposal Under OMB Delegated Authority To Extend for Three Years, With 
Revision, the Following Information Collection

    Report title: Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking 
(SHED).
    Agency form number: FR 3077.
    OMB control number: 7100-0374.
    Frequency: Annually; On occasion.
    Respondents: The Board expects that the respondents would include a 
nationally representative sample of non-institutionalized individuals 
\1\ who are 18 years of age and older. Due to the nature of the third-
party vendor's respondent pool, this sample naturally includes repeat 
respondents, which allows for evaluating changes in respondents' 
economic conditions, as well as time series analysis.
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    \1\ Non-institutionalized individuals refers to individuals who 
are not inmates of institutions, such as those who are incarcerated 
or live in a retirement home, hospital, or other medical 
institution, as well as active duty military.
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    In 2019, the Board changed how respondents were selected to 
participate in the SHED questionnaire to more closely reflect a 
nationally representative sample. Thus, effective with the 2019 
questionnaire, the respondent panel no longer contained a low- and 
moderate-income oversample. Instead, the same number of respondents 
were interviewed but those respondents were drawn as a random sample of 
adults, rather than by attempting to sample a disproportionate share of 
low- and moderate-income adults. This change was made to obtain a 
respondent sample that more closely reflects the overall adult 
population and to reflect that these deviations from a nationally 
representative sample were no longer necessary for analyses of these 
populations given the current size of the SHED respondent pool.
    Effective with the 2018 SHED questionnaire, the respondent panel 
also no longer included an explicit sample of repeat respondents. 
Because approximately one-fifth of the vendor's total online respondent 
pool for the questionnaire is already comprised of repeat respondents, 
a substantial fraction of questionnaire respondents are repeat 
respondents without the need to have an explicit repeat sample.
    The Board plans to continue to sample a nationally representative 
pool of respondents without an oversample of low- and moderate-income 
individuals and without an explicit repeat sample group.
    Estimated number of respondents: Quantitative survey, 21,500 
respondents; qualitative survey, 30 respondents.
    Estimated average hours per response: Quantitative survey, 0.35 
hours; qualitative survey, 2 hours.
    Estimated annual burden hours: Quantitative survey, 7,525 hours; 
qualitative survey, 180 hours.
    General description of report: The FR 3077 questionnaire is used to 
collect insightful information from consumers concerning the well-being 
of U.S. households and how individuals and their families are faring in 
the economy. The collected information could be used for the Board's 
Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households; Board studies or 
working papers; professional journals; the Federal Reserve Bulletin; 
testimony and reports to the Congress; or other vehicles. The SHED 
questionnaire includes such topics as individuals' overall financial 
well-being, employment experiences, income and savings behaviors, 
economic preparedness, access to banking and credit, housing and living 
arrangement decisions, education and human capital, student loans, and 
retirement planning. The overall content of the SHED questionnaire 
depends on changing economic, regulatory, or legislative developments 
as well as changes in the financial services industry.
    Proposed revisions: The ad hoc SHED questionnaire has undergone 
numerous revisions in order to both minimize respondent burden and 
capture new and emerging topics. For example, beginning with the 2017 
SHED questionnaire, the questionnaire asked about exposure to opioids 
under the ``Health and Insurance'' component; the 2018 questionnaire 
included a question on willingness to take financial risks; and the 
2019 questionnaire included several questions on exposure to the 
criminal justice system and new aspects of employment in the gig 
economy. The Board also annually reviews existing survey questions to 
identify those that no longer need to be included or could be included 
only periodically. Examples of questions cycled off of the 
questionnaire include asking homeowners why they own their home, 
questions on auto-lending, and questions on expectations for the 
financial well-being of the respondents' children. The Board proposes 
to maintain the 2019 questionnaire, which includes these changes, as 
the core content. The Board also proposes to continue to add or remove 
a limited number of questions annually to reflect new areas of interest 
on an ad hoc basis. However, the time necessary to respond to the newer 
questions on the questionnaire, which were added in recent years, has 
taken respondents less time than it took to respond to the older 
questions that were removed, thereby reducing the overall respondent 
burden. Additionally, as the Board's understanding of the time 
necessary to complete the questionnaire has improved with additional 
years of data collection, it has been determined that the completion 
time is lower than initially estimated. This improvement in the time 
estimates led to a reduction in the expected respondent burden for the 
questionnaire.
    Legal authorization and confidentiality: Section 2A of the Federal 
Reserve Act requires that the Board maintain long run growth of the 
monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy's long run 
potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the 
goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term 
interest rates (12 U.S.C. 225a). The Board uses the information 
obtained from the FR 3077 to help fulfill these obligations. The FR 
3077 is a voluntary information collection.
    Personally identifiable information collected on the SHED 
questionnaire, which would identify individual respondents, will be 
withheld under exemption 6 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). 
Exemption 6 of the FOIA protects information from being disclosed that 
would result in an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy (5 U.S.C. 
552(b)(6)). In the event cognitive interviews are conducted with select 
individuals to obtain qualitative feedback regarding an individual 
respondent's thoughts or reflections on the questions posed in the SHED 
questionnaire, both the questions posed to the individual respondent 
and their responses would be protected by exemption 6 of the FOIA (5 
U.S.C. 552(b)(6)).

    Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, May 5, 2020.
Michele Taylor Fennell,
Assistant Secretary of the Board.
[FR Doc. 2020-09940 Filed 5-8-20; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6210-01-P