Rent, debt, wages, and what people search for at 2 a.m. — the signals show up long before a young adult's finances break. We measure them, publish everything, and put the evidence in front of the people who can fix it.
For a 25-year-old today, the affordability crisis isn't one bad month. It's rent that takes a third of the paycheck, a loan balance that barely moves, and a medical bill waiting to happen — compounding quietly for years. Our work is to make that slow squeeze measurable, and then impossible to ignore.
Field studies with university teams, peer-reviewed papers, and the research still in progress. Every piece is free to read, with its sources attached and a line to the tools it built.
A weekly stress reading for all 50 states, built from search behavior and public data. Hover a state, or switch the indicator.
Data partnership · Google Health Trends Privileged API access from Google's Health Trends team is the data engine behind the Barometer's real-time signals. How we use it
Meet the nonprofits using Google tools to support their communities during COVID-19. Watch their stories: https://t.co/MIoKTZNnTz
— Google.org (@Googleorg) August 27, 2020
A research agenda is really a list of honest questions — the quiet ones, the inconvenient ones, the ones the data keeps hinting at. These are the six we're chasing now. Open one to see why it matters and what it's already feeding.
Can search behavior predict an eviction before it's filed in court?
An eviction filing is a lagging indicator. By the time a case reaches court, the damage to credit, health and housing stability is already done. If searches for help spike weeks earlier, cities could put emergency rental assistance in front of the right households in time.
Does one medical event really erase a generation of savings — and for whom?
A single emergency-room visit can undo years of saving, and young adults are the group most likely to be uninsured or under-insured. We're mapping who absorbs the hit, where the bill lands, and what it does to everything else in the budget.
How do community banks absorb the financial aftershock of a tornado?
When a tornado flattens a town, the local bank is often the only lender that knows it. We're studying how community banks absorb the shock, keep credit flowing, and what happens to households when they can't.
What does AI adoption in banking mean for the people behind the teller window?
Banks are automating fast. We're tracking what that means for entry-level jobs, the first rung on the ladder for many young adults, and for who gets approved by a model instead of a person.
Where does financial literacy change behavior — and where is it just theater?
Everyone agrees it matters. Far fewer measure whether it changes behavior. We compare what people search for before and after they learn, so education gets built on evidence instead of good intentions.
When does student debt stop compounding disadvantage, if ever?
For millions of young adults the loan payment competes directly with rent. We're measuring how that competition plays out state by state, and when, if ever, the balance stops compounding disadvantage.
Most research stops at the paper. Ours doesn't: the same team that spots the signal builds the tool and carries the evidence to the people who can act on it.
Search behavior, rents, wages and prices across all 50 states, refreshed as new data lands.
The Barometer turns those signals into a 0–200 stress index for every state, and a young-adult index on top.
Plain-language briefs and peer-reviewed papers. Every method and every limitation published.
Free tools young adults actually use: loan simulators, rent vs. buy, the medical maze, a paycheck calculator.
Evidence in front of the people who set policy, from WHO and the World Bank to city halls and campuses.
All our research is open-source and available on GitHub. Dive into our methodologies, datasets, and findings.