More than half of people in the US aren’t economically secure, and many families’ resources fall short of what it takes to cover essentials. However, for communities trying to improve financial well-being, that means looking beyond any single headline number to understand how income, wealth, debt, and rising costs shape residents’ day-to-day stability.

Income and wealth shape nearly every aspect of financial well-being. They influence families’ ability to afford basic expenses, respond to emergencies, invest in education or homeownership, and plan for the future. But no single measure can tell the whole story. Income provides a snapshot, but savings, debt, credit, assets, and affordability pressures reveal the full picture.

Instead of starting with a single headline, users can start with a question: Are people earning enough to get ahead? Do households have the financial cushion they need to manage a setback? Where might debt be limiting opportunity? Are rising costs making it harder for income to translate into stability?

The following Urban Institute data tools can help researchers, policymakers, advocates, and community leaders develop a more comprehensive, accurate picture of financial well-being in their communities so they can better analyze local data, understand what drives outcomes, and connect findings to practical policies and resources.

• The Upward Mobility Data Dashboard offers a useful entry point. Grounded in Urban’s Upward Mobility Framework, the dashboard connects income and wealth to the broader conditions that support mobility from poverty. Users can explore measures related to opportunities for income, financial security, and wealth building, while situating those measures alongside other factors that shape economic success, power and autonomy, and dignity and belonging. That structure helps users move beyond individual indicators to understanding the broader factors that may be supporting or constraining mobility.
• The Financial Health and Wealth Dashboard dives deeper into household-level finances at the local, city, state, and national levels. It goes beyond income to include savings, retirement resources, credit, debt, assets, public benefits, utility burden, health insurance coverage, and wealth. It can help answer questions about whether households have emergency savings, how access to credit shapes access to opportunity, how severely households are utility burdened, and whether families have the resources to build long-term security, not just meet immediate expenses.
• Urban’s Debt in America tool allows users to examine delinquent debt and collections, including student loan, medical, and retail debt. Though taking on debt can help households invest in the future, if they cannot pay their bills on time and fall into collections, they may have restricted access to credit, employment opportunities, and housing and may have a harder time recovering from financial shocks. The tool provides key context for users seeking to understand how debt shapes opportunity.
• The American Affordability Tracker shows changes in the cost of families’ basic needs. Income growth doesn’t automatically translate to financial security if the costs of housing, child care, health care, transportation, energy, and other essentials are rising faster than families’ incomes. By bringing affordability into the conversation, the tracker helps users understand whether earnings are keeping pace with the costs of daily life.

These tools can be used individually or together, depending on the question. Together, they offer multiple entry points for understanding community members’ financial realities so local leaders can see where income, wealth, debt, and affordability pressures intersect and where targeted action could make the greatest difference.