November 2024
Middle-income, Millennial, and thrifty
Over the past two years, Millennials and middle-income consumers have been prioritizing bargains as they deal with rising costs.
Key takeaways
- Bank of America aggregated credit and debit card spending data shows that consumers continue to show forward momentum, but some are trading down across restaurants, grocery stores, travel, and clothing stores in order to continue to spend.
- Looking across incomes, consumers in the middle (earning between $50K and $100K) have traded down the most on average. This is likely as their wages have lagged the rate of inflation by six percentage points relative to 2019, according to wage data from Bank of America deposit accounts and inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Among age groups, Millennials have seen the largest degree of trading down to less expensive "value" tiers since April 2022, likely as they attempt to offset the rising costs of housing, cars, and childcare, according to our data.
Read our full analysis for a more in-depth look at these trends.
