Advance or Retreat: Will Affluent Americans be Bullish in 2022?

Inflation, market volatility, and midterm elections – how will Affluent American consumers react to these in the coming months?

There is no doubt that 2022 brings with it a great deal of uncertainty, but the top income earning households, who control three-quarters of the country’s net worth, have the financial means to weather any difficulties that may arise. Evidence of this group’s importance can be found in their personal finances where, despite the pandemic and the ensuing economic turmoil, the net worth of Affluent households actually grew by 18% over the previous year. 

But will the specter of more COVID mutations or the growing political divide cause Affluents to adopt a more cautious approach to investing? Or will the desire to experience life again trigger a willingness to spend big?

Listen in as Tony Incalcatera, Chief Research Officer of Ipsos’ Affluent Intelligence team presents findings from the latest research on Affluents’ expectations for the new year and what it means for marketers. You will hear more about:

• Affluents’ expectations for their lives, finances, and hopes for the coming year
• Their outlook on the U.S. economy and how it will impact the economic recovery
• The product and service categories that can expect growth – and at whose expense
• Preferences for returning to the office and what it means for Affluents’ work/life balance
• The issues and areas of concern that are most pressing as we approach the midterm elections

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AI-generated audio transcript is offered below. Apologies in advance for inconsistencies that have been included.

0:03

Thank you for joining us for today's Ipsos webinar, Exploring Affluence, Outlook on the Year ahead. Today's presentation is being given by Tony in Calcaterra and you can read more about him on the slide in front of you.

0:20

Throughout today's session you will remain in listen only mode, however throughout the webinar. Please submit your questions online using the Q and A feature.

0:30

Time permitting we'll answer questions at the end of today's session. However, if time ran short, then your question will be answered by e-mail.

0:40

I also encourage you to check out the handout we've uploaded into the webinar console.

0:47

Today's webinar is being recorded and will also be directly e-mailed to you.

0:52

So now without further ado it is my pleasure to introduce today's speaker Tony ... Senior Vice President with ipsos's audience measurement team. Tony, you have the floor.

1:06

Thank you, Elen. I appreciate it.

1:09

And thank you all for joining us today.

1:12

When we met, oh, about a year ago, we were talking about really the difficulties the previous year 20 20.

1:22

And what was hopefully the promise of 2021.

1:27

No.

1:27

It was really soon after the riots took place, capital affluent opinions are really clouded by.

1:35

You know, the toll that kogod was taking lives, contentious election and they were really looking to the future is as an opportunity to get sort of the negatives behind us.

1:47

Vaccinations.

1:48

We're just beginning at that point, the beginning to rollout there was hope that life was going to return to normal really as close to normal as possible.

1:58

Now we fast-forward 12 months, and what we've experienced, or two significant, called mutations, delta N now.

2:08

Further ideological polarization in the country, ongoing or growing worldwide complex, devastating that natural disasters, and that's really all of that, just sort of helps to understand where affluence are sitting today and where they're likely to be in the next several months. They still remain fairly upbeat.

2:32

You know, despite all these things, and that frankly is a good thing, most marketers, because this is a group that represents the biggest spenders in virtually every category with the exception of tobacco.

2:49

We're gonna talk, we're gonna give you a lot of information today, and it's going to come from two primary sources, the forces are going affluent survey, which is Enfield 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

3:06

We survey roughly, you know, 23, 24,000 people a year.

3:11

But then we're also going to be presenting data from our latest study which was conducted just closed field a week ago.

3:21

And that is a what we call Q one parameter which are annual study of the Outlook and finances that was fielded from January sixth through the 18th, so very fresh data.

3:37

We're going to start today by looking at hopes and expectations for the year.

3:44

We're gonna discuss how perceptions of the past year really are shaping the outlook for this year.

3:50

And then we're going to talk about, you know, some potential storm clouds that are that are on the horizon and things that we need to be.

3:59

We're going to look at how Africa and see the state of the United States, the issues that are most important to them, you know, especially as we look forward.

4:11

As we look towards the midterm elections, I don't know forward to them. And really because affluence, as I said, yields such a heavy influence in the marketplace. We're going to spend some time looking.

4:25

They're spending expectations in what we believe are going to be happening over the next several months.

4:32

With the vast majority of these people still currently working, we're gonna look at the details surrounding the working from home versus return to the office and what that, what that really is going to look like and what it means.

4:49

And then, lastly, we're going to try to sum up all of this.

4:53

Give you some some key takeaways that week sense out of all of this data.

5:00

So, what I can tell you right now is that there really is an era of cautious optimism.

5:06

It's not unbridled enthusiasm that that's not happening at this point.

5:11

It surrounds affluent Americans in this sense that when we think about the year ahead, they are weary of the pandemic.

5:21

Clearly, like most of it, 92% affluence are vaccinated fully vaccinated.

5:29

And for those, most of the, most of them are have either been boosted or planning to be, did so they've taken precautions, which is not surprising when we asked them about their expectations for the coming year and the work that we see most frequently as. Well.

5:49

And then, you know, and that is both in terms of the belief that there are good things on the horizon, but also the theater, the need for them.

6:00

A positive outlook on life, and then what is going to happen as we move forward.

6:07

They do expect things to get better in a number of different ways.

6:13

But they are, you know, particularly concerned about health, staying healthy, surviving the pandemic.

6:20

They're looking to make their lives, particularly on the work, life, bElence, better.

6:29

Want to secure their future retirement. And frankly, many of them are rethinking as a result of the events.

6:39

Lastly, that you know, they want to get more enjoyment.

6:44

So, we're, we in their own words.

6:45

What we're hearing is the desire to get, to have in life, to get more enjoyment, which, you know, for so many of them, is really about the return to travel to vacations, to ease some of the tensions and feelings.

7:04

They want to spend more time with friends and family, particularly those that they haven't been able to spend time in, Alaska.

7:14

Hope, you know, it comes in awful.

7:18

In some instances, it's about new challenges, taking on new ways of looking at life, new dreams, fulfilling new dreams.

7:31

You know, it's really about the mindset of how it's a, it's an entrepreneurial spirit, that really brings right?

7:39

In many of its, They spend a lot. They spent the last couple of years rethinking.

7:48

Rethinking what to orient, you're going to talk a little bit more about that later in the presentation.

7:56

But you know, I love this quote from one of them, which is it's, it's pretty basic, it's pretty clear that everyone wants to survive the pandemic.

8:06

But the health the health crisis is also fraught.

8:10

The number of new things are renewed, sense is the importance of health and wellness in our CEO.

8:19

So it's more than if we didn't code, it's really about taking steps to feel better both physically and emotionally mentally.

8:31

Know, that desire really impacts affluenza, say think about work life bElence as they think about what it means to be working home during the worst of the pandemic it and this return to the office. What that's going to look like?

8:50

They've, you know, started to understand that there are new possibilities in terms of flexible work routines, things that will make their lives better or sibling.

9:03

Now, we know that working from home means that there are fewer hours lost commuting.

9:10

But, we also, on the other end, know that, for many of them, those hours that they work community are now work hours. So they were working longer hours. Because what really never one way. if it was sitting in your home office, kitchen, living room, wherever it happens to be.

9:28

They realize, though, that they can now work, and collaborate work together quite successfully.

9:37

It's made a lot of people rethink about how they make their living and what is next, so we anticipate that we're going to see a lot of change.

9:49

The one, to solidify their own future, their future success of their family, we've heard from a lot of them about their desire to invest more, to save more.

10:01

They want to build on what is already a solid financial foundation, eight in ten affluence right now.

10:09

I believe that you're responsible for your own retirement, you assert that they need to take steps to make sure that they are going to be in a sound place.

10:22

That means that they're actively involved in the management of their finances.

10:27

In effect, you know, the good news is that three quarters of them already feel financially secure.

10:34

You know, that's certainly more so on the, on the older end of the spectrum than it is in the younger.

10:40

And, but the good news is that there's less stress level affluence, and there is more non affluence as they're thinking about their personal finances, what it means.

10:53

Above all, looking at all of the data, looking at reading all of the open-ended responses, they're looking for a piece of, you know, the last couple of years had really weighed on people.

11:08

So much there is looking to regain control and getting them with.

11:12

That has really an important lesson for all of the companies that are messaging to these folks.

11:22

Know that the Roman god Janice was that God, gates, and daughters.

11:30

He was always did this having to basis.

11:32

one day, it looked to the past that understood where they came, later became and the other that looked to the future and could see where he was.

11:45

So it really was very fitting that the first month year is named after him because it is that time reflecting on what came in the previous year and can what we're about to do move forward.

12:01

So let's dig into some of the data there.

12:05

In a nutshell, 20, 21 was just it was A so-so year, roughly half of you said that they thought it was a good year for them personally as well as for their family.

12:20

Frankly, the Dalles surging 19%, a year during the year didn't hurt. It made sense that we saw few people disagree that their careers and finances took a hit in 21.

12:35

In fact, when we asked them about their household net worth, we saw a very distinct minority of Africa and saying that they lost ground, of course, the past year, based on over 2021 ball data.

12:51

The average affluent household now has a net worth slightly more than one point one billion dollars.

12:58

So as a solid financial Woody going to talk more about finances in a second, but I did certainly want to just give you the top line.

13:08

And you know, even though they think they are feeling competent personally, once they look beyond their, you know, their immediate khulna, their own home, their own family affluence, are very worried about the rest.

13:26

Contrary Heard of them read data that 20 21 was a good year for the US economy, that's relatively low.

13:38

Barely one in four, agreed with the statement that 20 21 was good for America as a whole.

13:46

Know we often discuss the benefit of this financial installation, that, that Apple would have in there for the child.

13:57

Have those immediate concerns.

14:00

Think about the hierarchy of needs.

14:04

It's certainly true when we look at Nana, was how they perceived the the year.

14:10

Barely a third of knowing our stock, 20 21 was good, Significantly more of them, Excuse me.

14:21

I felt that that things, that there are companies that they will actually benefited more so than they did.

14:30

know, honestly, in a world where workers rights are becoming highlighted, every game will read more. The difference in that perception is going to be critical to know.

14:42

It has ramifications for most companies.

14:45

If employees feel that the companies benefited, didn't well, but they didn't, they're going to expect to see changes that that benefit.

14:57

So, wow, the affluent households saw an increase in one half of them saw an increase in their net worth, Fewer than one in three non applicants, saw an increase in house.

15:12

This is all likely due to a very hot real estate market, we're going to talk more about the distribution of assets in a little bit, so that you can get a sense of, of why these things are changing.

15:27

So, you know, thankfully we've been measuring these, these metrics for some time now.

15:32

So you know, as a result, we can look at the trajectory over time pre pandemic.

15:39

We typically saw that three quarters of affluence.

15:42

We'll follow up positive feelings both about the, the year that it passed as well as their expectations.

15:51

We're not surprise. Anyone thinking any?

15:55

When we looked at these numbers last year and we saw a numbers that were just far worse based on the experience.

16:03

And the pandemic, we decided to do it because those numbers were, so we decided to re ask questions midyear to get a sense of what was happening.

16:16

And, you know, we did see some income, but it was considerably less than their expectations.

16:23

The lift in expectations for the next six months, really pretty muted.

16:29

Now it is important to note that, you know, though, that there is a 10% improvement in the expectations of 2022, compare to feelings about when each one, you know, we look at this data closely.

16:44

We see really it's Bitly.

16:46

The positive stuff is being driven by younger affluence.

16:51

They distinctly have a much more positive attitude, then builders and seniors about the coming year.

16:58

We're going to talk about some of the concerns of those younger generations captured into that you can see where the general generational differences are here.

17:10

We do note that close to eight in ten Millennials, Millennials are always enthusiastic.

17:17

Close to eight in ten of them Believed 122 is going to be a good year.

17:23

So, that's a nice kick off.

17:26

Now, shift the focus to the family to move beyond themselves.

17:31

Personally, we see a fairly similar pattern to what we saw on the second Camp of 21. It really wasn't any better than the first.

17:42

Thankfully, there is more hope for 20 22 are very, really is still lower than three pandemic bubbles.

17:50

So, it's likely due to the rising rates of pediatric ovid, the difficulties associated with in person learning with schooling.

18:01

That is pausing this new date, or this bigger concern, for their families, for the extended families.

18:12

We do see an uptick, albeit.

18:15

It's slight in terms of how careers and finance has fared last year as well, let's see, expectations for 22.

18:26

It certainly hazard her on household networking, three significant, certainly in the past 12 months, but there are Jitters in the stock market if you just witnessed, like this, happened over the last couple of days. You can understand that this is a roller coaster.

18:45

We're going to talk about why that's really important to us in a few slides from a career perspective that also doesn't or that employers are really needing to do everything they can to recruit new buyers and retain the ones that they already have. So, yes, there's clearly been a, you know, a great resignation.

19:09

But the the potential for career advancement frankly is there if affluence.

19:16

Now, you know, again, when we move outside of The Cocoon, the U.

19:25

The American South Pole continues to be variable, only one in four Affluents believing that 2021 was good for the country.

19:36

Here's a market increase in expectations this year, then, sort of bring us more in line with where we have been in past years, but it's still quite low.

19:53

So, you know, I always think I sound like a broken record. When I say thanks to the financial installation in the success of Apple and say, they feel protected.

20:02

But the reality is, that's exactly what they say.

20:05

They do feel that they have the resources to weather the storm.

20:11

They're less worried about themselves, and they're more worried about what happens in the rest of the country, because that does eventually impact.

20:20

They're new.

20:21

They're realizing that they benefit in lots of ways based financial success, but they are going to start, or they are going to be worried about how others are fair.

20:35

And that really does color their view of the US economy.

20:41

The challenge is that, you know, that we're all seeing right now in terms of inflation, supply chain, disruptions, difficulties in hiring, you know, are really putting it down An affluent use of the aluminum.

20:57

44% of them feel good about the prospects for the economy, but 32% do not, in 24% are just feeling neutral at this point and, you know, wait adopting a wait and see attitude.

21:14

Now, the good news is that this is better than we saw than where we were.

21:20

Just three minutes ago, we were seeing pessimism about the economy rising sharply.

21:26

Again, it's really a far cry from war reward during the worst of the pandemic.

21:32

When you pessimism, outweighed optimism for the first time they were almost 10 years.

21:39

That, you know, it was the last one that happened was during the debt ceiling crisis.

21:46

Clearly, we have to keep track and keep watching this because it does have an impact.

21:53

How much affluents were willing to spend?

21:58

So, you know, as I said, we're not out of the woods yet.

22:03

Literally there are issues. There are potential storm clouds on the horizon.

22:07

I kind of think of us as you know marketing meteorologists if you will, we've got it.

22:15

Keep an eye on what is happening out there. Keep an eye on weather.

22:21

Like most Americans affluence are really conflicted about politics.

22:27

They're conflicted about public health issues.

22:31

Reading through for Baden responses is is probably one of the most difficult things in the world.

22:38

Because you are really getting this sort of oil shock understanding of what's happening.

22:46

Emotions are bubbling to the top, They're there, really they're difficult to read because the comments are critical with different groups, blaming each other for the really pulse entry.

23:01

Yeah, I have to say that I've had to adopt a very tough skin, reading through some these, didn't make it through some of the mean recurrence, but that, you know, that's the reality of where we are today. I'm not going to repeat some of them.

23:18

But, yes, suffice it to say that, that the next several months are going to continue to be storming when it comes to political positioning.

23:29

So all of that is, is helping to drive up overall stress.

23:34

We've been asking, for some time about Hub, how stressed people are on a scale of 1 to 10.

23:42

It's affecting the younger generations, much more so than the older generations.

23:48

Much more so than seniors in blue.

23:51

The result is that they are rather, in view of the fact, that the younger generations are known as well established.

23:59

You have less of a pushing it.

24:06

They're going to need products and services that sort of make their lives easier, or at least ease their mental stress, help them get over fears about the future.

24:19

What this means for so many of them there, they're navigating what's you know, radically altered work environments.

24:28

You know, whereas the older, more experienced workers have things set up that establish, they have routines, networks, or younger apple and those things are not quite there yet.

24:42

It's, you know, it's a difficult situation.

24:47

Marketers really need to recognize the differences in the generations targeting their messages accordingly.

24:55

Certainly, it's going to come into play, or things like financial services.

25:00

Companies are companies that are looking to help people, who have the money to buy things that are goods.

25:12

Yeah, we should point out that foster positive 20%, one in five.

25:17

So instead of feeling extremely high levels of stress, up until now, you know, what we see was that there were women who had rating their stress as extremely high than men, but for some reason, in the last quarter, The recent data showing us that, just as many men are feeling stressed out, as women, S, I, you mentioned earlier, the stress is really hitting the younger folks much more so than the older folks.

25:51

And in fact, one in three, Gen Z affluence is experiencing high stress.

25:59

That is going to change their outlook, change their behavior.

26:05

A primary cause of stress, it's not going to surprise anybody.

26:09

It's colvin, and it's, you know, really mounting pressures at work.

26:15

Either due to the fact that we are still in a situation where many people are working lonely, returning, short term to the office is, the fact is, that work is a huge portion of our lives.

26:31

And really, is it made easier? But what's been happening for the last couple of years?

26:39

In their own words, affluence or they're worried about health, they're worried about the safety of themselves and their families and they're looking for relief from those pressures.

26:51

You know, that that's likely to come in.

26:54

Things like products and services that they really make their lives easier through taking care of normal things in their lives, new dining out, food deliveries, those kinds of things. Or it's going to be things like indulgences, that that make me feel better.

27:19

Being able to get back to vacations.

27:23

They're not worried about you lockouts or you're worried about difficulties in getting to play.

27:32

They want to feel pain.

27:34

They want to feel luxuriated A, if you will.

27:39

Now, when we do talk to them, we asked them about the most important issues facing the country today.

27:47

Cov, it has risen again to beat the single most important issue.

27:52

So we're only seeing 27% of people telling us that is the most important issue that needs to be addressed in country.

28:02

OK, felt a second place, interestingly at last quarter, when the economy overtime, but given the Ohmic region, no variation in the surgeon, obit cases, get back up there at the top.

28:20

You know, it's certainly got people on edge, but it's really, it's not the only issue on their minds.

28:27

You have concerns about the economy, about health care in general and frankly you do this that continued polarization.

28:35

The political polarization of the country is, you know, a major issue for people.

28:41

Yeah, We did look at this across Generations, and we do see that there's some commonality there.

28:47

So, Freeman, OK, it is the number one concern, one, the generations. But, but then we start to see some clear differences about other aspects.

28:59

So Virginia Z, that younger generation, healthcare, is the second most critical issue.

29:07

Then followed by the economy and the environment.

29:11

There are only two raised concerns about guns and firearms along the top.

29:18

We shipped over to millennials, we're seeing this an increase in the percentage of people who are saying that I'm concerned about inflation.

29:27

They're the only group to talk about unemployment and the lack of jobs among the top 10 concerns in the country right now.

29:37

Shifting over to Joe Boomers and seniors and it really is interesting to note that political polarization is seen as a bigger concern.

29:47

Then the economy, inflation or other hot button issues.

29:53

I think, you know, the question really becomes, What are they going to do about?

30:00

We'll, we'll try to address some of that in a bit.

30:02

But what I did want to point out for marketers is that it's especially important for them to understand the issues that are important, too.

30:12

Individual generations.

30:14

Because we know then more than half of affluence consistently tell us that there or they would rather buy from a company that actively supports their community, even if it would be more expensive.

30:29

So, you know, the result is that so many companies are pursuing corporate social responsibility policies, and it's going to become more prevalent.

30:40

It's going to be critical for companies, really, to understand which issues are important to which people.

30:48

Because that ultimately is going to just make sense as far as which issues they will stand up for moment.

31:02

OK, so, you know, as I mentioned earlier, that the midterm elections are coming, and they're moving along.

31:10

Really, who wants are looking at this?

31:14

And spending time thinking about, you know, let's take a look.

31:18

Look look at where things currently set in, frankly, you know, what's likely to happen next.

31:26

So, for some time, we've been asking applicants whether the country is headed in the right direction, or if it's off track.

31:35

And for most of that time, there were far more people who sat there, We're heading on road track.

31:43

People who were saying we were headed in the right direction.

31:47

You know, earlier last year, there was this very brief period.

31:52

Were the numbers flipped before really turning decidedly bad?

31:59

Much of the right direction wrong direction.

32:03

Bronc Track, excuse me, is, Is trying to politics, Hey, you know, and here again.

32:11

So, beta responses are really difficult to get without feeling bad during the Trump years, the comments from Democrats were stinging.

32:22

They were just Nein negative. And of course now under the Biden Presidency, the it's flipped so that the Republican comments are every Republican affluent, Communists are really hard to read.

32:38

They're very harsh, harsh rhetoric on both sides and blaming each other, or the issues that they see as the bubble in the country.

32:49

It should be noted, though, that there's a sizeable portion of Africa with Republicans who still feel that things are headed in the right way.

32:59

And that's been relatively stable, and I think that that has the potential to have an impact on elections moving forward.

33:11

So you don't coming off that record turnout in 20 20, in that last federal election weren't surprised to see that there were large numbers of Americans were planning to vote. Next.

33:26

In this next election cycle, whether it is an either in the local, state, or federal primaries, or the general election, we do see that affluent, or significantly, more likely, than non applicants to plan to vote.

33:43

And one of the concern, the thesis, and we looked through it is the lower proportion of non that women, or planning to vote, quite different from the rest of venture.

33:57

Far more disturbing is the fact that that younger app that wins are so much less likely to vote in this next election cycle.

34:08

And we know that this has been an issue for some time, but for the one in five Gen Z, after going to the airplane to vote in any election this year.

34:21

It's really going to be, you know, critically important for the political parties to figure out a way to incentivize young voters to get to the polls.

34:32

They're going to need to pay attention to those issues that they're telling us are critical or important to them.

34:39

Otherwise, they're not going to generate enough enthusiasm to get significant number of them enough, two, to make their voting choices.

34:53

So when we look at the issues of concern, we looked at it previously by generation.

34:59

Let's look at what happens as we split it across the three political affiliations, if you will.

35:06

We do see common theme, not surprising, cobia ideas, Number one: US economy is clearly important And what we're, what we're seeing are: things that are in the air splitting, the parties, health care, environment, the environment, racial inequality important to Democrats.

35:28

While inflation, pooling, and emigration.

35:34

But it's really interesting for me to see that independence rate political polarization as a bigger issue than the economy.

35:45

Their concern is, is there late that if we can't figure out a way to find solutions to the polarization, we're never going to solve other problems.

35:57

We've got to somehow, you know, bridge that chasm between groups in order to, to move forward.

36:06

Now, we've asked, affluents which party they're planning to go, or, in the coming elections.

36:12

We see that the Democrats are essentially locking or missing planning to vote for their party.

36:20

Republicans are less, you, are still quite good.

36:24

There is a, you know, a schism, possibly within the party, you know, over support for the former president, but the real issue in all of this is how independent are going to vote.

36:36

So, there's a slight advantage for Democrats among affluent independents This week, although there's, they're really just as many independents who say they haven't made up there or, they're going to vote for another party. So, we're going to be tracking this throughout the year to see how things change and reporting that back to you guys in our quarterly updates.

37:01

Alright.

37:01

So now that we've, you know, given you a sense of, you know, where afterwards mindset sets, let's talk about.

37:11

But I think most of you want to know which is how much will affluence spend in the next year and what are they going to spend it on.

37:21

So, you know, we often talk about the importance of affluent households to the economy.

37:27

And that really comes from the fact that half all households hold a tremendous amount of net worth. And I know we've shown this this slide, or a variation of this slide, to many of you for.

37:43

But the reality is at 70%, total net worth of country is sitting among the top 20%, net $96,000 billion.

37:56

And frankly, as we look over time, it really is still true that the rich are getting richer.

38:02

That gap between the top quintiles in the bottom else is, you know, continuing to Biden.

38:11

So that Apple in household are continuing to be critically important in all.

38:19

one of the things that we've done is we've looked at the distribution of assets, buy the quintiles, and it really is important to note that that currently affluent households have more of their assets sitting in things other than their wombs.

38:37

The other is in real estate.

38:40

If we look at the lower quintiles, we're seeing, you know, almost half of the asset value of the lowest quintile households comes surely from the value of their homes, whereas only 20% of the assets, the asset value, it's, it's called real estate.

38:59

It's warped by the fact that one in every $3 affluent, yep.

39:05

Go, excuse me, asset is sitting in stuff, stocks and mutual.

39:14

The reality is that it's going to be important to keep an eye on the stock market, really is a bellwether how afternoons are feeling in their spending patterns.

39:26

That's really as we, as we look at the increased wealth in households over the last 20 years, you know, really can see the extraordinary growth.

39:38

What's coming from stocks and equities in 2001.

39:44

More of affluent well was sitting in their homes in the real estate holdings and pension entitlements that it wasn't stopped working.

39:54

10 day, you know, that looks completely different.

39:57

That's just gonna pick a higher portion setting in investments.

40:03

And the reality these fluctuations in the stock market have the real potential to either spur rader spending or perhaps put a damper on spending over time.

40:17

So we do have to keep track of what's happening there as a means of understanding what's likely to happen.

40:25

Yeah.

40:25

The good news, though, is the wau wealth has grown tremendously amongst African households.

40:34

It's more than tripled, didn't know in the last few years The debt ratio, the amount of money that affluent households own, relative to the assets they have, it has dropped significantly so, you know, currently, affluent households have that debt to asset ratio of about 8%.

40:57

It's compared to where we were 20 years ago, that was sitting at host 13%.

41:08

So, you know, as we look at it, there are much better financial shape.

41:11

And now the question is what they can do with all that money, they, haven't they.

41:16

Big bank accounts.

41:19

Thankfully, we're able to look at that through the affluent survey that that we conduct.

41:26

We've been tracking annual expenditures for many years, and we certainly saw shifts during the pandemic.

41:36

Things like expenses related to dining.

41:40

Dropped quite a bit during the pandemic. Yes, we're doing more takeout.

41:45

But the fact is, we're intervening in restaurants as much as.

41:51

So the good news on that front is that 61% of applicants are saying that they expect in 20 22, to spend about the same or more money dining out than they did pre pandemic.

42:07

That's good news for the restaurant industry, the as well as other aligned into the streets.

42:15

It's especially true as we come out of the resurgence, which hopefully it will be soon.

42:25

At least the markers are looking as if we are getting close to the peak, travel was clearly one of the hardest hit things in during the pandemic.

42:41

It also happens to be one of the things that, that Apple which I'm most passionate about.

42:46

So, you know, they seek out travel.

42:49

It really is a remedy for the pressures of day-to-day life, to get some relaxation, it held close to 40% pre pandemic levels.

43:00

Travis still happened, it just was happening in a way.

43:04

There was a shift, too, vacations by car, as opposed to vacations by air.

43:12

Again, the good news is that about two thirds of affluent say that they expect return to pre pandemic bubbles and that there we can go back to the amount of money they spend or spend more in 20 22 than they did before.

43:31

Now, what, we've been talking about, people going back to work and apparel had already started.

43:40

We knew we did see that there was an increase back in Nepal.

43:46

Particularly, as people were returning the office and having to give up yoga pants and, and they're casual, actual work tire, to suddenly come back to the need dress really.

44:02

We're going to see, you know, 70% of them are telling us that they're going to spend as much or more in the coming year as they did.

44:12

On the automotive front, we know there was a slightly different story here which was, well, first we know that half roughly half of all affluent households plan to purchase lease a new vehicle or a acute, we have a vehicle new and or pre ... in the next year.

44:36

Then with a supply, we're really hampered by the supply chain issues, things like Europe, the chip availability, the rising price of ...

44:50

vehicles. It wasn't surprising that we saw an increase in what people were telling us they spent.

44:57

And you know, three quarters of them are telling us that they're going to continue to spend at least as much or more than they did pre pandemic.

45:07

So it's good news for the automotive industry. Good. Good News for those companies.

45:13

We also know that some of this is is being caused by the fact that half of the many app that we have shifted I said going back to work.

45:22

They've shifted portions of transportation away from public transportation you know, as they worry about know, their health contagion.

45:35

So you know we do think that new vehicle application is going to be important as people continue to return to the office.

45:45

Now over the course of the pandemic we did see a large uptick in expenditures on technology.

45:52

And, again, a perfect sense because, you know, there was the need to optimize for home office to you figure out a better way for kids to learn remotely.

46:06

And ultimately, we were all looking for distraction and entertainment. Here just sort of pseudo her mind.

46:16

So we saw that technology vendors, personal technology expenditures increased quite a bit, and that trend is likely to continue in 20 20 to 85%.

46:29

Apple, in search of willingness, they're going to spend, you know, equal to or more than they did pre pandemic.

46:37

Will the return to offices diminish these numbers, it's really unlikely in the short term, in all likelihood.

46:46

We're going to continue to see a hybrid approach to working in the need to make sure we that we have the right equipment in order to do those things.

46:59

So, let's talk about what you know just what is going on with the return to work is it does have an impact on all of these things and all of these expenditures and it really is a mixed bag.

47:12

Thankfully because of the type of work that the winds tend to do, six in ten affluents were able to shift work from in Office two at home during the pandemic.

47:27

In addition about 8% of them, I said that they worked from home prior to the pandemic so they were already there.

47:35

You know, that meant that two thirds of the actual workforce was was actually working move during the pandemic. And there were lots of lessons that are learned.

47:47

The good thing is that, most Apple is body work, right?

47:51

Well, three quarters of them, who shift there's three quarters of the people who shifted from in Office two at home, believed that it worked just as well.

48:02

It submits it says even better than being in there.

48:06

And that really has led to rethinking about what war means and what people want, right?

48:14

So, when we asked them about returning to the office, only half of them barely want to return to the office full time.

48:24

About one in four, You say that they want to work, whoa, part of the time, and partly in the office. And then there's another 23% that say they don't want to return to the office after.

48:37

Don't want a deep back, and an office working that's going to have no major repercussions for companies.

48:44

Is there trying to understand what the future work Office Workspace is going to look like.

48:53

It's going to have ramifications for commercial real estate.

48:56

For the local businesses, boarding business areas of it. You think about coffee shops, restaurants.

49:03

And the lower number office workers, we're going to see some, some radical changes, and it also impacts the technology companies that are selling products and services related, but help us work remotely.

49:23

Help us, lompoc collaborate, you know, from different places, around, around the country, right?

49:33

OK, so, so, where do we currently sit?

49:36

Right now, nearly half of the app Owens who shifted to work are working on return back to the office.

49:46

Another 27% say they're back at the office part-time.

49:52

The rest of Richard, They're still walk in the room of those who, back in the office, about a little bit more than half of them returned voluntarily.

50:05

And the other half, are you, back due to company mandates, not necessarily that they want it to be there.

50:14

Most of the people were still, working from home, don't expect to return any students. We don't think we're going to see a major shift of next month's.

50:24

In fact, a third of them are saying they're never going back to this.

50:29

So, you know, clearly a large disruption that's the return to the office.

50:36

They're experiencing a fairly wide range.

50:40

Our share functionary policies that are meant to keep them safe, whether you're talking about people who have already returned or people who are going to be returning to or in the future, no more than half of the companies say they're going to require employees.

51:00

They either have or there will be, requiring employees to be totally vaccinated.

51:05

Many companies are reducing the number of days that people are going to be working in the office or changing the physical.

51:12

You're set up at the office re-organizing space so that there's more space between employees or limiting the number of employees in an office. at any particular, actually.

51:26

The result of all this is that you are going to continue to see differences in, in how Affluence is, as well.

51:33

As many other pushes that population work, you know, manage their careers, what's coming next.

51:42

We asked them about how the changes we're going to impact their work-life bElence, and it was rather interesting to me that that few people felt it was going to make it worse.

51:56

You know, I thought for sure that people would be complaining about when, you know, to commuting it back into the office.

52:03

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized, and it's, it's really likely due to the fact that, although people spent less time commuting, working from home meant that there was, there was no separation of work.

52:19

You know, the fact that you wore your office was right there, often meant that people working much longer hours. It was easy to continue to work because you didn't have to worry about getting that training going.

52:35

You're going home.

52:37

Now, women were significantly more likely to say that the return to office would negatively impact their work.

52:46

And I think that that is not a surprising finding because what we didn't know.

52:53

what we do know from the pandemic was that women for a Euro, an unfair burden during the pandemic because so many of the household responsibilities fell to them in addition to they're working routines.

53:10

So, things are not going to change their until schools are really back to normal, you know, back to in person meeting. and we don't have the disruptions that we have, right?

53:23

one last thing about work and if that's really that business travel is still lagging far behind.

53:30

Only at one in five affluence, tells us that their companies are supporting business travel that pre pandemic.

53:40

An additional 29% say they're traveling, but on a limited basis.

53:46

This is the lifeblood of many airlines It tells as well as businesses that cater to to business travel.

53:55

This is going to take a long time before it cools back, if it ever gets.

54:02

That means that the travel industry, a lot, programs that have been designed for business, travel, are going to be, may need to need to be made up, or by ocean track.

54:16

So we will see changes in it approaches, OK, so deep breath, know, what do you make up all of this? Well, I think there are four key takeaways here.

54:31

The first is that in terms of expectations, we do think we do see that there is a lot of positive belief in terms of improvements for 2022, 2 and 3 affluence. You think it's going to be good for them or slowly?

54:50

A tips on the left from 20 21. But it's still not where we would like it to be.

54:56

They're still lower than pre pandemic levels and that's largely caused by coby fatigue.

55:04

Concern us about the economy, omer con?

55:08

You know, it starts to Egan, go down.

55:12

Hopefully, we think that lutes will improve and we'll, we'll keep an eye on this over the course of a year. Because, that does him.

55:20

How people are spending and what they're doing.

55:24

In terms of expenditures, you know that apples are sitting on the money.

55:30

And it's, you know, thankfully or luckily, it has wound during the pandemic show that they are in very good financial shape.

55:43

Yeah, think the technology companies and automotive companies are going to benefit the most.

55:49

But the travel companies are going to need to figure out ways of capturing dollars that might have been there before, particularly in terms of business, shifting it too.

56:04

Money, that's going to come from personal applications, we do know that that's a cautionary tale.

56:12

There's a lot of money out of affluent money wealth that is sitting in the stock market. So we need to keep an eye on what's happening there.

56:22

Keep an eye on what's happening with interest rates in the federal reserve as a really an indication of what is going to transpire for afterwards in this year.

56:35

Future.

56:36

The elections are concerning for everybody.

56:41

They are clearly a big concern of affluence.

56:45

We're hoping that we see large numbers of people voting, independence are really going to be the big decision makers since members of the two dominant political parties are pretty much going to vote for their party.

57:05

Then, you know, as we really look at the return to office, we're going to continue to see lifestyle modifications today.

57:13

Two thirds once worked for all or some part of the pandemic.

57:19

And that really changed their attitudes and their opinions about work and about how their lives could look.

57:28

No, given the new normal.

57:33

Only half of those you work for or wanted to go back.

57:38

So, we are definitely seeing, you know, some shifts, jean, so, I'll leave you with that with with one other thing.

57:49

Please join us on February 23rd for our next webinar, which is going to look at the physical fitness or the physical fitness, sorry, know, how affluenza flexing their financial muscle?

58:03

We're going to spend some time looking at investment approaches and strategies that will be in place for 2022 looking at how people are re-allocating financial accounts services that they're using, the sources of information that they use to make financial decisions.

58:22

We're going to spend some time talking about the adoption of cryptocurrencies and, you know, things like new fungible, Tokens, and ..., which are becoming even more. So, in any case, thank you all. Know, it's been a long session, but I really appreciate your time.

58:42

Hope you have a great day out. Shift this back over to Elen. Depth, we'll talk soon.

58:49

Wow! Thanks so much, Tony, for today's really jam packed and interesting presentation. As a reminder to all our attendees, you'll be on the lookout for a link to today's recorded presentation. Additionally, you can reference more about this study in the handout section of the events console. We always welcome the opportunity to connect with you directly so please reach out to us with any questions. Have a wonderful day, everyone. Thanks, Tony.