What are Americans thinking? Lately, they’ve had plenty to think about, amid the changing pandemic picture, raging inflation, and the Russian attack on Ukraine. Every week the research organization Civic Science samples the opinions and attitudes of thousands of consumers. It’s not one of those ‘phone polls’ that interrupts your dinner. Instead, it’s a short pop-up survey following something you’ve already clicked-on. The idea is that you’re less likely to be irritated at the survey, and more likely to share your honest opinion.
So what have people been telling the Civic Science research team this past week? Here are a few headlines from this week’s surveys:
Consumer confidence is officially in the toilet. Our Economic Sentiment Index just had its lowest reading of all time – which covers a span of over 10 years. Consumer attitudes had been pretty ugly since October, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine took things to a new, abysmal level. Inflationary fears are through the roof, while even views toward the job market fell for the second straight period. Optimism for the U.S. economy right now is bleak. There’s no way to sugarcoat it.
Consumers really, really expect corporations to take action against Russia. Civic Science lead researcher John Dick says. “I always tell our clients, ‘Don’t do socially-responsible things because it’s good business, but it’s good business to do socially-responsible things.’ This is another one of those – in spades. An astonishing 81% of U.S. adults believe co’panies should stop providing products or services to Russia right now. The results are similar across political parties, all age groups, and any other slice of the population you can think of.
COVID is losing its grip on the American psyche. A subplot of our dreadful economic sentiment numbers is the fact that they seem to have finally decoupled from people’s pandemic fears. For the better part of two years, you could be certain that consumer confidence would rise and fall as COVID cases rose and fell. For now, that interdependency seems to be over. Pandemic concerns are reaching lows we haven’t seen since last June, when vaccine uptake was burgeoning and Delta wasn’t a thing yet.
Supply chain shortages have taught us a lot about how people buy cars. Economic headwinds have done little to temper demand for automobiles, perhaps because things are still backed up. Twenty-six percent of people say they’ve run into inventory shortages when looking to buy a new or used ride, up from 21% last year. Americans are remarkably split on what they’d do if the exact new car they want is unavailable. Thirty percent of people would wait. Nineteen percent would buy the car used. Eighteen percent would buy a different model from the same manufacturer.
Consunmer research by Civic Science, March 5, 2022
Learn more at www.civicscience.com
