Something I’m hearing over and over again is that people don’t have warm & fuzzy feelings about the economy right now. Normally, when people fear an impending recession, they start saving money like a chubby squirrel hoarding nuts for winter. But the numbers aren’t telling the same story. 3rd quarter GDP reported back in October came in much higher than expected and showed a very healthy, robust economy being fueled by our consumer spending. But that doesn't really matter if we're not feeling good about the future.

It's been puzzling me for months. But this week I read two pieces that made things click. The first argues that we've exchanged pandemic doom-scrolling to post-pandemic doom-spending. This totally makes sense. When everything is awful, what can (sometimes… temporarily…) make us feel better? New stuff!

The other article I read comes to us straight from the Federal Reserve. This particular chart stopped me dead in my tracks:

The line of circle data points (top) tells us that survey respondents generally feel pretty good about their own money situation. The hollow square points making up the middle line tell us people feel less great about their neighbors' financial well-being. And the bottom line of solid square points shows that people think the economy sucks for everyone else. We can see that there hasn't been a bigger split between those feelings in recent memory. Other surveys support these findings, too. 

The bottom line is that economists continue to see a lot of good signs for the future. Reasons to spend that aren't all about doom & gloom include a still-strong job market, strong home equity (if you were lucky enough to buy a house before interest rates rose), or just a newfound level of zero f🦊cks given.