STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN EXPENDITURE: how consumers in the US are responding to the Closedown
How are consumer habits changing? What are the sectors that are benefiting, and which ones are paying for the Covid-19 crisis and the closedown? We begin to see this forced change by analyzing the situation in the USA, where these data have been made available with a much more precise definition than in Italy. The data is Bank of America on credit and debit cards, and the consumption data compares the first half of August with the same period last year.
First of all, a general fact: in the USA, debit cards are used much more than credit cards:
Credit cards are evidently more used during travel and leisure activities. Furthermore, a large part of the expenditure is linked to unemployment contributions that go to those who do not have, or no longer have, a credit card.
Let us now consider the structure of consumption. Of course, personal services are still in serious trouble:
What has precipitated in consumption? Here's the list:
- air travel – 77%
- entertainment -83%
- travel -32%
- hotels -42%
- fuels -15%
- clothing -10%
What has grown:
- furniture + 27%
- online purchases + 69%
- food shopping + 11%
- household spending + 16%
- DIY and home improvements + 29%
In general, spending fell by 0.1% in August compared to the previous year.
As we can see, consumption is currently supported by those, above average, of those earning an income of less than $ 50,000 a year, probably someone who now receives the dole that has been amply fattened by the Trump administration. However, this extra subsidy will run out in September, so these incremental consumption will run out putting the US recovery at risk:
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The article STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN EXPENDITURE: how consumers in the US are responding to the Closedown comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/i-cambiamenti-strutturali-nella-spesa-come-negli-usa-i-consumatori-stanno-rispondendo-al-closedown/ on Sun, 23 Aug 2020 07:19:07 +0000.