Dear Fellow American:

I am writing to ask for your help through participation in a survey about consumer finances. The Federal Reserve Board has sponsored such a survey every three years since 1983 with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of the effects of changes in the economy on a wide range of households throughout the United States. The results of our previous surveys have provided important information for making policy decisions both here at the Federal Reserve and in other parts of the government.

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. Our survey is intended to fill a key part of this gap.

There are two major reasons that our survey is a good way to obtain the information we need. First, the scientific design of the survey allows a relatively small group of randomly selected people, who voluntarily share their information, to represent the nation. Thus, the number of people who need to participate is minimized. Second, our data collection systems are designed with extensive safeguards to protect the anonymity of the survey participants. Indeed, neither I nor anyone else at the Federal Reserve is allowed to know the names of the survey participants.

We have contracted with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago to undertake the 2001 survey for us. Participation in the study is strictly voluntary, but I urge you to take part. Your answers are key to the representativeness of the data. If you agree to participate, a trained interviewer from NORC will contact you during the spring or summer months to schedule an appointment for an interview.

Additional information about how the answers you provide will be used can be obtained from the interviewer who contacts you. Also, you may review some highlights of the 1998 survey in the January 2000 issue of the Federal Reserve Bulletin on the Federal Reserve web site at http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin.

I would like to thank you in advance for your cooperation in our efforts.

Sincerely,

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