MONEY TALKS: Understanding Finances in the Orthodox Jewish Culture

Approaching household incomes from all sides of the coin helped us gain a thorough understanding of Jewish family dynamics across the world. Below we compare family size, orientation, occupation, financial standing, and income bracket to get the most accurate portrayal and learn how different factors impact financial outcomes.

There’s lots of talk about Jewish financial education, but little data. The insights below help us understand the depth and quality with which Jewish young men and women start off their financial paths.

We also tackled the division of labor between men and women across Orthodox Jewish communities, and the habits and frequency demonstrated when it comes to luxury purchases.

It was astounding to learn about Jewish Home-Ownership. Based on the responses, there seems to be a strong emphasis on owning homes across different communities, income brackets, and household sizes.

In an effort to understand the impact of finances on Jewish marriage, we asked couples to rate their communication and shared values around money. A close look at the responses points out an interesting correlation between income and relationship dynamics.

We asked respondents to rate the level of concern they carry about significant expenses prevalent in the Orthodox community. What stood out most were responses from heavily populated Jewish cities, within the Tri-State area and beyond. Their big concerns include rising expenses like housing costs, food prices, tuition, high living standards, community trends, insufficient earnings, and employment opportunities.

With the intention to understand individual spending values and priorities, we asked Jewish men and women to rate the importance of different lifestyle expenses including travel, luxury purchases, investments, cleaning help, and more. It's interesting to note the distinctions between the choices of men and women. The emphasis on Maaser/tuition speaks to a core common Jewish value across the board.

We touched on the big topic of credit cards to understand peoples' attitude and approach around it. The responses vary from savvy users to those who strictly avoid it, and quite a number for whom credit cards prove to be detrimental.