https://www.wsj.com/finance/regulat...nancially-especially-parents-ab383606?mod=mhp WASHINGTON–The share of U.S. adults who said they were doing OK financially fell last year, underscoring one of the key hurdles to President Biden’s re-election hopes. The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that 72% of respondents to its annual survey of financial well-being said they were “doing at least OK” in 2023. That was down from 73% the prior year and 78% in 2021, when households were flush with cash from pandemic stimulus checks. The decline in self-reported well-being was especially pronounced among parents living with children under the age of 18. Among that group, only 64% said they were doing all right financially, down from 69% in 2022 and 75% in 2021. Also, I found this interesting: Adjusted for prices, U.S. disposable incomes reached their all-time high in the first quarter of 2021, at a level 10% higher than in the first quarter of this year, according to Census data. That windfall was the result of two things: aggressive federal spending to offset the pandemic—including thousands of dollars of stimulus checks to households with children—and inflation that had yet to awaken. So if you give people free money, then it causes inflation, then you take it away, people get pissed.
For all the doom and gloom talk that’s actually a smaller drop than I would have expected. I would be curious what the numbers were in previous years. 2021 was the highest ever, so where does this sit historically?
A drop of one percent in consumer sentiment from the previous year doesn't seem all that significant.
