{"id":107216,"date":"2025-07-31T09:42:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T09:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/107216\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T09:42:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T09:42:21","slug":"survey-looks-at-how-middle-income-americans-are-navigating-inflation-tariffs-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/107216\/","title":{"rendered":"Survey looks at how middle-income Americans are navigating inflation, tariffs and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

(TNND) \u2014 Middle-income Americans are experiencing both successes and struggles as they navigate the economy, a new survey from Santander US<\/a> showed.<\/p>\n

The financial services company, which counts Santander Bank among its businesses, conducted the survey along with Morning Consult in mid-June. The results were published Monday.<\/p>\n

Three-quarters of middle-income Americans said they are on the right track to financial prosperity.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an improvement from 72% saying as much a year ago and 68% two years ago.<\/p>\n

But two-thirds of middle-income Americans are bracing for a recession within a year.<\/p>\n

More than eight in 10 expect prices to keep rising.<\/p>\n

And nearly two-thirds of middle-income Americans who recently bought a home said they are living paycheck to paycheck.<\/p>\n

Bankrate Financial Analyst Stephen Kates, a certified financial planner, said Wednesday that middle-income Americans are \u201cin a bit of a vise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re feeling squeezed,\u201d he said. \u201cInflation has been one of the things that I think has created sort of this sentiment nightmare for most people who are average and just trying to pay the bills, pay their groceries, buy their things and … enjoy their life a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

TARIFFS & ACCELERATED CAR BUYING<\/p>\n

Santander found that concerns over rising prices have led more middle-income Americans to move up car purchases.<\/p>\n

Fifty-five percent of people said they are considering buying a car, which is the highest Santander has tracked in surveys going back two years.<\/p>\n

And 42% of those thinking about buying a car in the next year said they are now more likely to buy a car in the next three months because of uncertainty around tariffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tariffs were the incentive, as this survey calls out, for people to say, \u2018OK, I know I need something soon. It’s going to be now, because I don’t want to be surprised with an extra $5,000 or $10,000 cost on a car six months or 12 months down the line,'” Kates said.<\/p>\n

Automakers, too, are expecting a hit from tariffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some of that has already taken place, with General Motors telling investors recently that it felt a $1.1 billion impact from tariffs last quarter.<\/p>\n

Cox Automotive, the parent company of Kelley Blue Book, called tariffs \u201ca major headwind for vehicle affordability\u201d<\/a> that could add thousands of dollars to the cost of each imported vehicle.<\/p>\n

Sean Tucker, the lead editor for KBB, told The National News Desk last week that every car brand is in a unique position, so tariffs impact them all at different dates.<\/p>\n

Generally, automakers keep about two months\u2019 worth of cars in stock.<\/p>\n

But Tucker said some brands, such as Audi, have more cars imported at pre-tariff prices than others that are already selling mostly post-tariff cars on their lots.<\/p>\n

Retailers in general tried to buffer themselves from the impact of tariffs by pulling forward imports as much as possible.<\/p>\n

Tucker said automakers operate with complex supply chains \u201cwith a billion different dials they can turn to try to keep that impact from hitting the consumer too hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it’s starting to hit them, Tucker said. \u201cAnd they can’t hide that (from customers) forever.”<\/p>\n

FOCUS ON MIDDLE-INCOME FAMILIES<\/p>\n

The Santander survey focused on middle-income Americans, which the company defined as those earning between $53,000 and $161,000.<\/p>\n

A Santander spokesman said they focused on middle-income consumers, because they make up a majority of the company\u2019s retail bank customers.<\/p>\n

And the survey focused on car buying, homeownership and more, because those topics are related to the financial service products that Santander provides.<\/p>\n

The people who responded to the Santander survey said their financial prosperity relies on their ability to pay their bills, hold down a job, enjoy flexibility in how they live, avoid debt, and have enough money to deal with emergency expenses.<\/p>\n

On some of those key areas, middle-income Americans are doing just fine.<\/p>\n

Three-quarters are current on their bills, and 79% feel secure in their jobs.<\/p>\n

COOLING JOB MARKET<\/p>\n

But the labor market has become somewhat stagnated.<\/p>\n

Companies are not laying off people. At the same time, they may have hit the pause on hiring.<\/p>\n

The monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, or JOLTS<\/a>, released Tuesday showed the firing rate was just 1%. But the hiring rate, 3.3%, remained in a range that is the lowest in over a decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite a lot of kind of ugly news around layoffs and slow hiring, most people still do have jobs,\u201d Kates said.<\/p>\n

Companies are hesitant to cut their workforces, Kates said.<\/p>\n

But, he said, \u201cIf you don’t have a job, you’re in a pickle, because it’s harder to find a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Conference Board Senior Economist Stephanie Guichard said a day earlier<\/a> that the cooling job market isn\u2019t really showing up in the unemployment rate<\/a>, which remains a low 4.1%.<\/p>\n

But she said people are noticing that it\u2019s harder to find a new job, she said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s another impact of tariffs, with a lot of businesses unsure how the policy will evolve and how they should proceed.<\/p>\n

The Conference Board\u2019s new survey showed consumer confidence has stabilized after hitting a rough patch over tariff and inflation concerns.<\/p>\n

But Guichard told TNND that consumer confidence is still lower than it was in the fall.<\/p>\n

INFLATION<\/p>\n

Santander found that inflation remains the top concern for middle-income Americans, though that concern has eased a bit over the last couple of years.<\/p>\n

And middle-income Americans said they are better at managing higher prices than they were a year ago.<\/p>\n

More than eight in 10 middle-income Americans have cut back on shopping, forgone travel or dipped into savings or taken other steps to deal with higher prices.<\/p>\n

Wage growth<\/a> has outpaced inflation<\/a> over the last couple of years, which has allowed folks to catch up a bit after the surge in prices coming out of the pandemic, Kates said.<\/p>\n

HOMEOWNERSHIP<\/p>\n

Santander also asked middle-income Americans about their experiences owning a home or renting a place to live.<\/p>\n

Close to three-quarters of recent homebuyers said they make spending cuts to keep up with homeownership costs.<\/p>\n

And over 60% of renters said that renting is more affordable than taking on a mortgage.<\/p>\n

Sixty percent said that homeownership as a sign of financial prosperity is an outdated concept.<\/p>\n

And over half of renters said they would be comfortable renting forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(TNND) \u2014 Middle-income Americans are experiencing both successes and struggles as they navigate the economy, a new survey…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,68688,53017,79,68687,16403,266,12857,68686,2175,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-107216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-car-purchases","10":"tag-consumer-confidence","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-financial-prosperity","13":"tag-homeownership","14":"tag-inflation","15":"tag-job-market","16":"tag-middle-income-americans","17":"tag-tariffs","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114947197960278780","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}