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CHICAGO — This year holds promise for consumers but remains challenging, the latest IRI MarketPulse Survey has found.
This year holds promise for consumers but remains challenging, the latest IRI MarketPulse Survey has found.
Decreasing unemployment rates, falling gas prices and an improving housing market bolstered the U.S. economy in 2014. However, wages are lagging behind, which is causing consumers to remain concerned about their economic future and cautious about their spending habits.
Though shopper sentiment remained nearly flat during the fourth quarter, it still maintained an overall upward trend for the year, the survey found.
"It’s a mixed bag of both positive and negative forces at play in the CPG [consumer packaged goods] industry today," says Susan Viamari, editor of Thought Leadership at IRI. "Though we see many positives, a huge negative is the fact that income remains quite stagnant, so many consumers still don’t earn enough money to ease budgetary strain. In fact, our latest MarketPulse survey uncovered that 22% of consumers are still having difficulty in affording needed groceries, which is unchanged from a year ago."
When looking at the big picture, the quarterly survey found that 33% of respondents feel their financial situation is worse today than a year ago, 47% feel their position is unchanged, and 20% feel their position has improved.
More than one-third (36%) of Millennials, those ages 18-34, feel their financial situation has improved in the past year, which is a much higher percentage than for the general population. This is a positive development, since this group has struggled during much of the economic downturn.
