According to a new report released today Chase credit card spending decreased by 40% during March and early April compared to spending last year during the same period. The majority of the spending decrease was attributed to spending on non-essential goods and services such as retail, restaurants, and entertainment. Households with income of less than $39,000 reduced spending by 38% whereas households with incomes of more than $92,000 reduced spending by 46%. In addition spending on groceries and healthcare initially increased by 20% but that has now dropped.
I don’t think any of this is particularly surprising. I imagine that the increase in grocery and healthcare spending was due to households stockpiling goods. It’s also not a surprise that households with less income have seen a lower percentage drop than households with more income, if anything I would have expected that to have been a bigger difference.
