3/29/2025: A sea change is underway

Women are gonna have all the money.

Most predictions we make here are shorter-term, measured in months or maybe a year. Given our chaotic world – and news cycles – guaranteeing things far into the future is nearly impossible. Our sales pitch hinges on the value of our real-time data to enable agility and responsiveness amidst constant change. Often, it’s the best anyone can do.

Occasionally, we see things on longer horizons – things that look inevitable. A single election, news event, or pandemic can do little to change their trajectory.

One of those things is happening in financial services right now.

I don’t need to tell you that household finances and investments are traditionally the domain of men. There are many reasons, most stemming from centuries of inequity around everything from family roles to wage disparities to the way math is taught in schools. Slowly, but surely, those things are evolving – and it’s happening on all points along the age spectrum.

The average woman in America today lives 6 years longer than the average man, and the gap is widening. It means when our massive population of Baby Boomers dies off, trillions of dollars of wealth will transfer from departing men to their surviving wives. A study from McKinsey found that 70% of widows changed financial advisers within a year of their spouse passing away. The implications for investment firms, banks, and even retail will be earth-shaking.

Across age groups, the number of married men who say their spouse makes most of the financial and investment decisions in their family has increased nearly 30% since 2019, while those who say they share responsibilities climbed 12%. More notably, men aged 18-29 are nearly 3 times more likely than men 65+ to say their spouse calls the financial shots.

Adding fuel to the trend are numerous other factors. College-educated women are getting married much later, giving them many more years to establish financial literacy and independence. Marriage rates among non-college-educated women are plummeting. Meanwhile, today’s young men are less likely to apply to college, less likely to ask women out on dates, and otherwise struggle to find financial or marital opportunities. The pay gap is still an inexcusable problem, but it’s down to just 5 cents on the dollar among Gen Zs and younger Millennials.

All that to say, more and more families will be like mine. Tara does it all. She could have a bunch of our money hidden in an offshore account, and I’d have no idea.

A sea change is underway.

Here’s what we’re seeing:

Consumer confidence is continuing its downward trend. At some point, our Economic Sentiment Index will level off as people go from a state of fear to a state of wait-and-see. We haven’t reached that point yet. Our latest ESI reading yielded its fourth consecutive two-week drop, driven mostly by Americans’ declining optimism about their personal finances and a slightly lower level of pessimism about the long-term U.S. economy. We can expect more of this, at least until the tariff dust settles.

Rising costs and the political climate are worrying older Americans the most. In the latest report we published with our friends at ROAR Forward, we looked at the rapidly declining state of emotional well-being among U.S. adults recently, with a particular focus on our fellow Americans aged 55+. The good news is that older adults are generally the happiest bunch, albeit declining at the same pace as the rest of the population. While overall stress, safety concerns, and loneliness are weighing most heavily on younger generations, older Xers and Boomers are disproportionately worried about the price of food and essentials, as well as the current state of political unrest. Like everyone else, they’re finding ways to cut back on spending.

Cynicism in the workplace is on the rise. Coincidentally, we also published the latest edition of our Pulse of the U.S. Workforce Report with our partners at idealis this week. Among the free highlights was yet more data about rising employment uncertainty among current workers. We also found major disparities by race when asking workers whether they believe their managers care about them as people…the results among Hispanic workers were particularly depressing. Meanwhile, also quite depressing, we learned that a minuscule 19% of Americans today believe most business leaders have a positive influence on society. Yeesh.

Tax refunds won’t likely be a boost for retailers or services companies this year. In our 3 Things to Know this week, we found a major shift in consumers’ plans as tax season nears its deadline. From 2021 through 2024, the percentage of Americans who said they would likely save any refund they receive hovered between 34% and 36% (see: margin of error). This year, though, that number jumped to 43%, as consumers are bracing for rainy days ahead. Plans to use tax refunds for travel, home improvement, or shopping all fell significantly. In other news, we looked at even more data proving that the NFL is king, as well as the raging popularity of prebiotic sodas among Gen Z.

Major League Baseball has a popularity problem. With the MLB season kicking off in earnest this week, we ran our annual data on fan anticipation and, well, it’s not great. The percentage of U.S. adults who plan to follow the upcoming season at least somewhat closely sits at 35%, down considerably from 41% at the same time last year. The numbers are particularly problematic among Gen Z fans. Among those who followed the league last year, 36% of Zs say they plan to watch less this year, versus 19% who plan to watch more. The deterrents run the gambit from the length of games, to the pace of play, to the availability of local broadcasts.