Americans Keep Buying While the Buffer Shrinks

The wallets are open, but the runway is getting shorter. Consumer spending in March continued to outpace income growth, with rising energy costs and everyday necessities absorbing a larger share of household income and leaving Americans with less financial flexibility than a year ago.

The latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, released Thursday (April 30), detailing March activity, put hard numbers to the squeeze.

Personal consumption expenditures rose 0.9% in March, outpacing the 0.6% gain in both personal income and disposable income. That gap is showing up in savings behavior, where the personal saving rate declined to 3.6% from 3.9% the prior month.

In real terms, the pressure runs deeper. Disposable income fell 0.1% in March, following a prior decline, leaving year over year growth at just 0.4%. Real spending, by contrast, continued to climb. The result is a steady erosion of the financial buffer households built in earlier periods.

The composition of spending makes clear where the pressure originates. Nondurable goods, particularly gasoline, drove much of the increase in outlays. Gasoline price indexes surged by 21% amid the ongoing war in the Middle East, contributing to a broader rise in nondurable costs and redirecting spending toward essential categories. Services spending also remains firm, rising 2.8% year over year in real terms, compared to a more modest 0.7% gain for goods.

These patterns point to a consumer spending more on what they have to and less on what they choose to. Even so, that spending continues to carry the broader economy. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2% annual rate in the most recent quarter, with consumption providing the foundation.

Consumers Adjust

Data from PYMNTS Intelligence add context to how households are managing this environment. The report “Generations Under Pressure: How Younger Consumers Are Coping With Higher Living Costs” finds that more than half of U.S. consumers report difficulty covering daily living expenses, with pressures concentrated in essentials such as food, housing and healthcare.

Food costs, in particular, illustrate the shift in household budgets. Nearly 9 in 10 consumers report financial strain when buying groceries, a figure that has risen notably in recent months and now extends beyond the grocery store into dining and delivery expenses. The effect is to compress monthly cash flow across the full spectrum of food spending.

For younger cohorts, strain is more often tied to out-of-pocket expenses and fragmented payment obligations. In both cases, these are not episodic costs but ongoing financial commitments that limit flexibility.

Against this backdrop, consumers are adjusting how they manage their finances. Roughly half rely on two to three coping strategies, including reducing discretionary spending, tapping credit and altering savings behavior.  The data show that younger consumers are more likely to layer multiple approaches, combining spending cuts with additional income sources and financial trade-offs.

This adaptive behavior is sustaining consumption, even as it reflects tighter financial conditions. The data suggest that the issue is less about whether consumers can respond to rising costs and more about how many adjustments are required to do so.

The broader picture is one of continued economic participation under constraint. Consumers are maintaining spending levels that support growth, but they are doing so with thinner savings buffers and a greater reliance on active financial management.