In the past week, economic sentiment worsened in the U.S. The decline is specifically driven by higher rates of pessimism around a few key indicators – purchasing a new home right now, being able to find a new job in the months ahead, and individuals’ personal financial outlook.
Financial confidence is actually pretty grim. Twenty-three percent of U.S. adults expect their personal financial situations to get worse over the course of the next six months. For comparison, the last time concern was this high was a couple of months into the pandemic.
Further research indicates that adults ages 45 and older are driving this trend as concern levels among this population have been on the rise since early August.
How does this factor into daily behaviors? CivicScience tracking data is also showing that fewer people are shopping online now than they typically do this time of the year. In fact, this number has reached a historic low of 77% since tracking began shortly after the pandemic’s onset in the United States. One possible reason – those shopping online less may be doing so because they expect their situations to worsen in the coming months.
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