Donna Summers Phase (reprise)

More tidbits on the slowburn of Almighty Cautious Consumerism

Publishing note: Random Walk is going to experiment with a different publishing cadence over the next few weeks (more details forthcoming). I will endeavor to trade some frequency for depth, at least some of the time.

• More on the Donna Summers Phase of Cautious Consumerism—who feels the burn?

• Dog day afternoon

• RVs are so back, and slow summer travel

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Donna Summers Phase (reprise)

Earlier this week, Random Walk mused about relatively stagnant incomes, and wondered when the other shoe would drop.

It’s basically some version of this:

Spending is growing more quickly than incomes, and that cannot go on forever.

The other little nuance is that—yes, while all incomes are stagnant—lower-income incomes were more recently stagnant, which matters because swiftly rising low-income incomes was a defining feature of the pandemic return to status quo ante something.¹

In that vein, two quick charts reflecting the lower-income consumer pullback, specifically.

Dog day afternoon

The first, relates to a semi-discretionary category that is somewhat distressing to see.