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The Multidimensional Hardship Index (MHI) is a valuable measure of well-being on a monthly basis for the adult population. The MHI is based on four dimensions which are created from questions from the Household Pulse Survey: job insecurity, housing insecurity, mental health hardship, and food insufficiency. A respondent is in multidimensional hardship if they face hardship in at least two out of the four dimensions. There are three main goals of this paper. The first is an update to the MHI methodology. In June 2022 the Household Pulse Survey dropped the main question used to define the housing insecurity dimension in the MHI. A new definition of this dimension is described and housing insecurity and MHI results are compared using the original and revised dimensions for months in which the questions defining both sets of dimensions overlapped: July 2021 through May 2022. Second, national MHI rates are currently only publicly available through March of 2022. This paper includes a monthly time series running from April 2020 through March 2023. Furthermore, MHI rates by state of residence, race and Hispanic origin, the presence of children in the household, and educational attainment over time are released for the first time. Change over time for the individual groups as well as the difference in hardship gaps over time are examined for each demographic category. Third, comparisons of the MHI to another measure of well-being, household financial security, are made over time in order to provide context and a robustness check for the MHI.
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