This week, Gallup released a poll showing that half of American adults say they are worse off financially than they were a year ago. This is the highest percentage since 2009, during the financial crisis.
On Friday, we got the results of another poll that seems to point in the opposite direction. The University of Michigan Consumer Survey finds that sentiment has picked up slightly in recent months, admittedly from historic lows, as inflation has eased. Accordingly, consumers are more optimistic than they have been for a year.
So how do consumers really feel about where the economy is going? We thought we’d check it out ourselves.
When we spoke a year ago, 28-year-old Michael Huber from Rhode Island had a decent job in cybersecurity.
“I wasn’t doing too well — from paycheck to paycheck, so to speak. I just got turned down for a house, a small 800-square-foot condo in the basement of a building,” he said.
He made about $80,000 and spent $400-$500 a month on gas. He’s since changed jobs, gotten a big raise, bought a house, and works from home most of the time so he spends less on gas.
“It’s as close to a 180 as you can imagine,” Huber said.
Construction electrician Tony Libert’s personal economy was also doing pretty well. He is 60 and lives near Madison, Wisconsin.
“We’re a college town, so we have a lot of work to do in that area,” he said. “I got raises because prices went up.”
Meanwhile, the pandemic moratorium on student loan payments has saved 33-year-old Ashley Phillips more than $1,000 a month. She runs a research laboratory in Durham, North Carolina.
“Things are a lot safer financially,” she said. “We could pay off credit card debt, save enough money to pay a down payment on a house” — and they decided they could afford to have a baby.
But inflation has eaten away their financial cushion. “Maybe I’ll get the store-brand butter and skip certain things just because I can’t stand the thought of paying $4 for an avocado,” Phillips said.
And with interest rates this high, Phillips said buying another car is off the table for now.
Libert is also concerned about high prices. He coaches youth hockey. “The cost of equipment, the cost of the Ice Age—all of that has gone up tremendously. It was double digit inflation in those areas. So it affects who can play.”
If there’s one takeaway from all of these interviews, it’s that people are cautiously optimistic about their own economy, but utterly uncertain about what the future holds for the economy.
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