Making Ends Meet
Measures of making ends meet capture whether income is sufficient to meet financial obligations.
Measure
Source: Vinokur AD, Price RH, Caplan RD. Hard times and hurtful partners: How financial strain affects depression and relationship satisfaction of unemployed persons and their spouses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1996;71(1):166-179.
Psychometric properties: Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were .86 to .88 for two data collection waves.
Very difficult | Difficult | Neutral | Easy | Very easy | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
How difficult is it for you to live on your total household income right now? | |||||
Not at all | A little | Some | Pretty much | A great deal | |
In the next two months, how much do you anticipate that you or your family will experience actual hardships such as inadequate housing, food, or medical attention? | |||||
In the next two months, how much do you anticipate having to reduce your standard of living to the bare necessities of life? |
Measure
Source: Ge X, Conger RD, Lorenz FO, et al. Linking family economic hardship to adolescent distress. Journal of Research on Adolescence. 1992;2(4):351-378.
Psychometric properties: Not reported.
I have enough money to meet my expenses.
- Strongly agree
- Agree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Disagree
- Strongly disagree
I have difficulty paying monthly bills.
- No difficulty at all
- A little difficulty
- Some difficulty
- Quite a bit difficulty
- A great deal of difficulty
I have money left at the end of the month.
- More than enough
- Quite a bit
- A little bit
- Not enough
Measure
Source: Conger RD, Conger KJ, Matthews LS, Elder GH. Pathways of economic influence on adolescent adjustment. American Journal of Community Psychology. 1999;27(4):519-541.
Psychometric properties: The three items were standardized and summed for each parent (a = .84 for mothers and .81 for fathers).
How much difficulty have you had paying your bills?
- A great deal of difficulty
- Quite a bit of difficulty
- Some difficulty
- A little difficulty
- No difficulty at all
Generally, at the end of each month, did you end up with:
- More than enough money left over
- Some money left over
- Just enough to make ends meet
- Almost enough to make ends meet
- Not enough to make ends meet
Family income never seems to catch up with expenses.
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree