As emerging data about the labor market paints a bleak picture about the state of the economy, it is wealthier Americans who are the most concerned about rising unemployment rates.<\/p>\n
According to New York Federal Reserve\u2019s August 2025 Survey of Consumer Expectations<\/a> released on Monday, of 1,300 household heads, those making more than $100,000 per year had the greatest expectations that the U.S. unemployment rate would be higher one year from now. While 35.4% of respondents making under $50,000, and 39.2% of those making between $50,000 to $100,000, believed jobless rates would be higher in a year, that rate rose to 44.2% among respondents making more than $100,000. Wealthier Americans having more pessimism around unemployment has been a trend over the past few years, according to report data, but the gap in this pessimism has grown over the last 12 months.<\/p>\n Moreover, this trend is replicated in demographic data looking at education levels and numeracy, or knowledge around interpreting numbers: Those with greater levels of completed education, such as a bachelor\u2019s degree, as well as those with high numeracy, have greater expectations of growing unemployment over the next year, and the gap between those groups and counterparts with less education and numeracy has widened.<\/p>\n In other words: Rich, educated Americans believe unemployment is going to be a more prevalent issue in the near future.<\/p>\n The latest jobs report<\/a> already stoked fears about the state of the labor market after new data showed just 22,000 jobs were added in August and unemployment rose to 4.3%, its highest rate in four years. Amid the job market turmoil, Moody\u2019s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said \u201cwe may already be in\u201d a recession.<\/p>\n While shrinking job vacancies has been impacting nearly every single industry\u2014barring health care and hospitality\u2014V. Joseph Hotz, a research professor in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, sees a clear difference in how different demographics are interpreting today\u2019s economic data.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people who are better educated, higher income, etc., have responded to current information\u2014really, the first half of 2025\u2014decidedly more concerned about the future,\u201d Hotz told Fortune. \u201cLooking at the spread and the difference between these groups is suggesting, boy, we\u2019re on very different pages as to what the future holds for the labor market in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018White-collar recession\u2019 fears<\/strong><\/p>\n Part of the surge in concerns among higher-income earners could be due to increased awareness of a \u201cwhite-collar recession<\/a>,\u201d or the current economic and political environment impacting jobs typically associated with knowledge work or higher levels of education. One in four U.S. workers<\/a> who lost their jobs in 2024 were white-collar professionals, according to S&P Global.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not production workers. It\u2019s not just service-sector workers, but it\u2019s now affecting every sector of the economy,\u201d Hotz said.<\/p>\n Beyond<\/a> the job market now being flooded<\/a> with fired government employees and federal workers opting for delayed resignation, the impact of AI on the future of jobs is beginning to creep into economic data<\/a>. JPMorgan senior U.S. economist Murat Tasci warned in a note to investors last month that knowledge workers are at an increased risk of recession-induced layoffs and jobless recoveries, as white-collar works have gone from making up 30% of the economy in the 1980s to about 45% of total employment today.<\/p>\n But this reaction of concern from wealthier and educated Americans is in part backed by objective data, Hotz said, but the jolt in anxiety reflected in the NY Fed\u2019s data also reflects a subjective reaction to the wave of negative labor-market data.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter a sort of large change, people tend to saturate their expectations,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s this tendency to be pessimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n The demographic disparity in expectations of unemployment rising in the next year is likely not just a result of actual economic threats, but perceived threats, too.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a mix of real exposure to risk that their future isn\u2019t nearly as bright, and possibly this exaggerated reaction to this new information,\u201d Hotz said.\n<\/p>\n