The credit card debt puzzle is not well understood. Households exhibit inefficient behavior when they have sufficient liquid assets to pay off their credit card balance, but do not. Based multinomial regression analyses of the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, the study discovered that households that display this behavior are more likely to have lower financial literacy than convenience users. The findings suggest financially literate households are less likely to display irrational behavior regarding the credit card debt puzzle.

Household composition in the United States is increasingly diverse; however, research into the diversity of the financial decision maker’s sexual orientation has yet to be explored. This analysis examines whether there are differences in financial risk tolerance between same-sex and different-sex couples using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances. The results from a propensity score matching technique, a Mann–Whitney U test, and interpretations of average treatment effects and average treatment effects of the treated suggest there is a statistical difference in risk tolerance between couples and that, on average, same-sex households are significantly more likely to report higher risk tolerance scores, at the 10% alpha level, when compared to their counterparts. Both treatment effect estimates suggest a high impact of the treatment at the 1% alpha level. This highlights the importance of not assuming homogeneous risk preferences across household types. These findings emphasize the importance of recognizing diversity in household composition. Thus, this study identifies the need for inclusiveness in all segments of financial planning.