Is the silver streak still on track?

David Tinsley

October 2024

While the spending growth of Baby Boomers and Traditionalists was significantly stronger than younger generations in 2022 and 2023, this year's gap appears to have narrowed, according to Bank of America credit and debit card data.
Why? One reason could be that the cost-of-living Adjustment (COLA), which affects social security income, was previously stronger than wage growth, however, this is no longer the case. The COLA increase effective in January 2025 will likely not change this situation. While some retirees receive income from other sources such as pensions, Bank of America internal data does not indicate that these households have significantly stronger spending growth than those relying solely on social security.
Rising net financial wealth could support the spending growth of some older generations, but we think this is likely to be fairly concentrated. And thus far, we don't see strong evidence for the spending growth of higher income retirees being faster than that of lower income retirees.

Read our full analysis for a more in-depth look at these trends.

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