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Center for Microeconomic Data

SURVEY OF CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS

November Survey: Inflation Expectations Steady at All Horizons; Consumers Are More Pessimistic About Their Financial Situations

Median inflation expectations remained unchanged at the one-year-ahead horizon at 3.2 percent, holding steady at 3.0 percent at the three- and five-year-ahead horizons.
Perceptions about households’ current financial situations deteriorated notably, with a larger share of respondents reporting that their households were worse off compared to a year ago and a smaller share reporting they were better off. Expectations about year-ahead financial situations also deteriorated slightly, with a smaller share of respondents reporting that their households are expecting to be better off a year from now.
Mean unemployment expectations—or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from now—improved slightly, decreasing by 0.4 percentage point to 42.1 percent.
Perceptions of credit access compared to a year ago deteriorated, with a decrease in the net share of respondents who expect that credit will be easier to obtain a year from now.

For more details:
Press Release: Inflation Expectations Steady; Consumers More Pessimistic About Their Financial Situation and Expect Rising Medical Costs

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SURVEY MODULES

SCE Credit Access
Survey

SCE Household
Spending Survey

SCE Housing
Survey

SCE Labor Market
Survey

SCE Public Policy
Survey

Fielding the Survey

The SCE is a nationally representative, Internet-based survey of a rotating panel of approximately 1,300 household heads. Respondents participate in the panel for up to twelve months, with a roughly equal number rotating in and out of the panel each month. Unlike comparable surveys based on repeated cross-sections with a different set of respondents in each wave, our panel enables us to observe the changes in expectations and behavior of the same individuals over time.

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