Corporate earnings releases and conference calls often serve as a real-time test of economic narratives. Management observations offer insight into how consumers behave at the checkout counter and whether they are clicking buy buttons on their devices and computers. The most recent round of earnings...
There’s an affordability crisis rocking households in the United States. Housing, insurance, healthcare, childcare, transportation and other categories once expected to scale gradually with income have instead shifted upward in step changes, all while wage growth remains uneven and employment stability more fragmented. Data from...
As the PYMNTS audience saw in Monday’s newsletter (March 2) there’s some wisdom to be gleaned from crowds. The occasion was the launch of the PYMNTS Consumer Expectations Index, a new report that’s built to close the blind spots in legacy sentiment gauges, it blends...
In March 2020, government officials and epidemiologists were telling Americans to brace for a two-month shutdown. PYMNTS Intelligence went into the field and asked 1,923 consumers directly what they thought. They said five months. In May 2020, the experts said recovery would come by fall....
Slight improvements in consumers’ expectations for business conditions, labor market conditions and incomes drove a turnaround in consumer confidence in February, The Conference Board said Tuesday (Feb. 24). The organization’s Consumer Confidence Index rose by 2.2 points in February to 91.2 after dropping in January, according...
Consumers continue to shoulder the expansion of the U.S. economy, even as late-year data reveal a more deliberate spending posture and a softer pace of overall growth. Income Growth Moderates as Spending Holds The Bureau of Economic Analysis data for December, released Friday (Feb. 20),...
Job security may be improving across the U.S. workforce, but financial confidence tells a more divided story. “Wage to Wallet™ Index: Side Work Patterns in the Labor Economy” explores how roughly 60 million hourly workers earning $50,000 or less annually are navigating rising costs, uneven...
If one theme connected fourth-quarter earnings calls across consumer packaged goods companies and discretionary brands, such as toymakers, it was the emergence of a consumer economy defined by prioritization rather than a full-fledged pullback. Executives outlined purchasing behavior shaped by sharper value sensitivity, selective trade-offs...
Tax season officially began on Jan. 26, and refunds are already starting to reach consumers’ accounts this month. While the arrival of refunds is annual, the expectations surrounding them remain grounded, shaped less by intent to splurge than by routine financial planning and household budgeting....