Covid-19 Daily Bulletin 23/07: Money Troubles

Some are feeling less stressed.

Welcome to today’s bulletin. This time we’re looking at how we’re all dealing with financial stress caused by the pandemic.

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Financial stress begins to ease

Unemployment levels in the US, Australia, and the UK (among others) are dismal, and there’s a global recession looming according to the World Bank. Consumers are sitting in the eye of the Covid-19 financial storm, and there’s no knowing how big that storm could be.

Given the continuous bad news, we wanted to check in on personal money concerns. How are people feeling about personal finance amid everything that’s going on?

Our previous research (May 29) showed a bleak picture, but more recently it seems consumers have become more optimistic about the future in terms of their own money.

Using our Consumer Research platform, we looked at English-language mentions containing concern, stress, and worry about bills, employment, money, and home payments. Concern levels have fallen since the worldwide outbreak began, although they’re still higher than they were pre-pandemic.

Employment was and still is the main concern for consumers. Worried mentions on social media about employment increased 51% from February to March (when many lockdowns began). Meanwhile, concern about money jumped up by 59% from February to March. But in the last three months, concern about both employment and money fell by an average of 10% per month.

Although volumes are smaller, conversations about bills and home payments (both mortgages and rent) show a similar pattern to those about unemployment and money worries. Posts containing worries about paying bills increased 134% from February to March, while people concerned about making home payments jumped by 209% in the same period.

In the last three months, concern about bills and home payments dropped down by an average of 23% and 32% per month respectively. This indicates that both have become less of a pressure point, although they’re both still a problem.

Looking to our mobile survey tool Qriously, our Covid-19 dashboard echoed what we’re seeing on social media.

Compared to when we first asked people how concerned they were about their jobs back in March, respondents are now 10% less likely to report being ‘very concerned’. Meanwhile, respondents are 19% less likely to be ‘very concerned’ about their investments, and 23% less likely to be ‘very concerned’ about their working hours.

Fewer worries and bigger spending

For now, it seems as though consumer financial worries are subsiding. And, according to our Consumer Research platform, people on social media are beginning to get back to non-essential spending. It may not be boom-time, but people are definitely excited to get back to some kind of normality.

From March 1 to June 30 2020, we found 5m English-language posts about buying a phone, computer, laptop, or tablet – a 125% increase compared to the four months prior (which included the Christmas period). People clearly want to stay connected and occupied while in lockdown or under travel restrictions, and have been willing to spend the money to do so.

Clothing – mostly loungewear and sneakers – clocked up 3m intent-to-purchase mentions in the same time period, a 121% increase on the four months prior. But the data suggests people aren’t in any rush to get to the mall. We found 21m mentions of online shopping and home delivery, a 193% increase on the four months prior. 736k of these online shopping mentions were from people who said it was their first time.

And it seems like leisure activities will soon be appearing on bank statements again, big time.

We found 460k mentions from people celebrating going back to the salon or hairdresser in the last four months. There were also 2m posts from people talking about booking a holiday or purchasing flights and 5m from people excited for a trip to a restaurant or a bar. All of these conversations are up compared to the four months prior to March 2020.

The lifting of restrictions has prompted many people to get out and make the most of what’s on offer. With more freedoms and less financial stress, things are looking pretty encouraging in terms of consumer excitement about spending. It will be interesting to keep up with this data to see how consumers continue to think about their finances and spending as the crisis continues to unfold.

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Stay safe,

Brandwatch Response Team