Almost half of Americans are worried about the safety of the money they keep in banks amid the current state of financial uncertainty, according to a poll released Thursday by Gallup.
The poll found that 48% of U.S. adults are concerned with their money, broken down into 19% who are “very” worried and 29% who are “moderately” worried.
On the other hand, 30% selected “not too worried” and 20% are “not worried at all.” The poll was conducted between April 3 and April 25 following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March, but before the First Republic Bank was seized and sold to JPMorgan earlier this week.
Gallup noted that the last time the organization polled Americans’ worry about their money in financial institutions was in 2008 following the Global Financial Crisis. When compared, the latest readings follow the same pattern of what Gallup found almost 15 years ago.
In September 2008, after the Lehman Brothers failure, Gallup found that 45% of U.S. adults were worried about the safety of their money. In December, after Congress bailed out other banks in danger of collapse, that number lowered slightly to 41%.
The latest results also break down by political affiliation and education level: The majority of Republicans (55%) and independents (51%) are at least moderately worried as compared to Democrats (36%). These results are flipped from those found in 2008, where Democrats and independents expressed more anxiety about the state of their money. And this time, Americans with no college degree tended to be more worried at 54% while only 36% of college graduates expressed concern, reflecting the same trend as 2008.
While Gallup has not measured financial worry in calmer times, the results are noteworthy nonetheless. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures deposits up to $250,000 per borrower, per bank.
Regardless of the string of bank failures in the past few months, U.S. government officials have continued to emphasize that the economic landscape remains strong.
“The U.S. banking system is sound and resilient,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday during a press conference.
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