WASHINGTON. US households are reducing their saving and take more and more dutywhich puts many in a weaker position to weather an economic downturn made even more likely by the recent turmoil in the banking industry.
Fears of an economic slowdown were renewed this week as US regulators took over the Silicon Valley bank and Swiss officials stepped in to bolster the bank’s finances. CreditSuisseand a group of Wall Street firms threw a lifeline at First Republic Bank.
The events have drawn parallels with the 2008 financial crisis and are likely to force banks to tighten lending, which will put additional pressure on already stressed consumers, which in turn could force them to cut costs and cause layoffs in companies facing declining sales.
“What we are seeing right now, in terms of stress in the banking sector, is likely to have escalating implications for the deterioration in household finances,” said Gregory Dako, chief economist at EY-Parthenon. “We are likely to see an environment in which banks are more cautious in their lending, especially smaller regional banks, and this will further exacerbate the easing we have already seen.”
Goldman Sachs on Thursday raised its chances of a recession by 10 percentage points to 35%. Other economists are even less optimistic that the US can avoid a recession. Bloomberg poll the chance of a recession is 60%.
For much of the past year, with inflation at its highest level in decades, consumers have largely been able to keep increasing their spending. Although retail sales were slightly down in February compared to January, they were still up 5.4% year-over-year, the Commerce Department said this week.
Bank of America credit and debit card data for February showed household spending rose 2.7% year-on-year, “suggesting consumer spending remains resilient even as spending growth slows.” report last week from the Bank of America Institute.
But data indicates that wages have not kept pace with inflation over this period. As a result, Americans are increasingly turning to their credit cards and savings accounts to support their spending habits.
“The average person’s finances were probably better a year or two ago than they are now, just because they had more money and less debt,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.com. “At the start of 21, there was a time when credit card balances were 17% lower than before the pandemic. And now they are up 28% from that low.”
Americans have spent about half of the savings they accumulated during the pandemic, rising from about $2.1 trillion in excess savings through an influx of government stimulus checks and spending cuts during lockdowns to about $900 billion as of the third quarter of last year. report by JP Morgan.
At the same time, according to the data, the percentage of people’s wages going into savings has fallen by about half compared to what it was before the pandemic. data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Meanwhile, the amount of Americans’ debt has risen sharply. Credit card balances increased by $61 billion to a record high of $986 billion in the last quarter of 2022, a stark change from two years ago when Americans paid off debt with stimulus checks. data from the New York Federal Reserve. Auto loan balances rose by $94 billion.
There are signs that a growing number of consumers are finding it harder to pay off this debt.
According to Bankrate, the percentage of credit card holders in debt month on month increased to 46% from 39% a year ago. Auto loan delinquencies are steadily rising from pandemic lows, with the proportion of auto loans overdue by at least 60 days reaching its highest level since 2006, according to data report last month from Cox Automotive.
All of these factors have investors, economists, and corporate executives keeping a close eye on what steps the Federal Reserve will take on interest rates next week. Another round of rate hikes will make it more costly for consumers to borrow money to finance a home or car, or to balance their credit cards. It will also put pressure on businesses that want to borrow money.
But with persistently high inflation, until 6% in February compared to a year earlier – some economists say the Federal Reserve has no choice but to keep raising rates to cut spending.
Another key factor that economists say they are watching is the labor market, which remains strong in part because consumers continue to spend.
Job creation slowed in February but was still stronger than expected, with the economy adding 311,000 jobs, the Labor Department said last week. The unemployment rate rose to 3.6%, which is the same as last year. But even a small spike in unemployment could force millions of Americans to cut back on their spending.
“The backbone of consumer spending is the labor market,” said economist Dacko. “If the labor market starts to show more significant signs of cooling, slowing down, weakening, then this will have a direct impact on household incomes and, in turn, their ability and willingness to spend.”