Yahoo Sports Consumer Anxiety Remains High
Deloitte’s latest Global State of the Consumer Tracker report reiterates other sentiment surveys in the market, which reveal consumers are focused on building their bank accounts as inflation continues to chew away at household finances. The report also shows consumers want to get out and about more, with leisure travel a priority.
The report revealed a high level of anxiety.
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Of those polled, 33 percent of consumers said they’re feeling more anxious than they did in the past. Fueling that anxiety includes a consumer’s personal financial situation, the direction of the economy and “personal family matters.”
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 32 percent of U.S. adults experience any anxiety disorder at some point in their lives while 19 percent have suffered from it in the past year. Stress from work and family as well as one’s financial state can lead to generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD, which is the most commonly diagnosed form of anxiety.
The NIMH said symptoms of GAD can include feeling restless, “wound-up, or on-edge, being easily fatigued, having difficulty concentrating, having headaches, muscle aches, stomach aches or unexplained pains,” and disruption to sleep. GAD can last weeks, months and even years and can impact normal functions, including holding a job.
The good news is that inflation seems to be cooling slightly. But the authors of the Deloitte report said consumer companies are likely “to compete with the consumer’s focus on savings and travel.”
“As inflation eases, financial well-being sentiment is starting to show modest signs of recovery,” the report stated. “But broader spending intentions are yet to follow suit as people focus on replenishing depleted savings. Leisure travel, however, remains an exception.”
Drilling down into financial wellness, the report said that 35 percent of those polled “feel their financial situation [has] worsened over the past year.” This compares to 40 percent in the 2022 report. “However, the percentage of respondents concerned about their level of savings remains elevated at roughly half,” Deloitte said.
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