20% of Americans expect their financial situation to worsen in 2024, compared with 9% at the same stage of the 2020 presidential election cycle, according to a new YouGov report. Despite this, Americans of every age group report having more disposable income now than they did in 2019.
YouGov’s new report US Consumer Finance Outlook 2024: Attitudes across the divide sets out to understand whether the looming general election impacts how Americans of varying political ideologies and age groups view their own financial situations.
The report finds that:
- 36% of Americans are optimistic about their household financial situation heading into 2024, down from 41% in 2019 but up from 29% in pandemic-impacted 2020
- 48% of liberals have a positive financial outlook for 2024, up from 40% in 2019
- 33% of conservatives have a negative outlook for 2024, up from 7% in 2019
- 38% of liberals have more than a $1,000 in discretionary income, up from 31% in 2019
- 35% of conservatives have more than $1,000 in discretionary income, up from 32% in 2019
“While two years of high inflation surely impacted how far increased discretionary income goes, Americans saw consistent growth regardless of ideology,” said Ryan Gmerek, VP at YouGov America. “Despite this, consumer financial sentiment varies strongly along partisan lines as we enter the presidential election year.”
The report also finds that older generations are the most pessimistic, with 29% of Americans aged 55+ expecting a worse financial situation in the next 12 months, up from 8% in 2019.
Among Americans who agree with the statement, “Artificial Intelligence in the future will help humans in most of their daily tasks,” 37% are optimistic about their financial outlook, whereas 24% of those who disagree are optimistic.
US Consumer Finance Outlook 2024: Attitudes across the divide also identifies how satisfied Americans are with their current investments and which financial products are increasing in popularity.
Download the report here.
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