U.S. consumer credit and debit card spending so far in 2022 is up 15 percent on a year earlier, Bank of America research showed on Wednesday, a sign that Americans’ gloom about the economy owing to high inflation has yet to translate into lower demand.
In fact, lower-income households—often described as the most vulnerable to an inflation-induced shock—are spending the most relative to their prepandemic outlays, the bank’s researchers found.
To be sure, Bank of America Institute researchers said some of that group’s spending will reflect high inflation, with March’s consumer price index registering an 8.5 percent year-over-year increase, the highest in over 40 years. Also, such households typically spend a higher share of their budgets on food, gas and utilities, which contributed most heavily to the CPI increase.
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