Most consumers spend more despite crisis - June 11, 2009

In the WageIndicator Web Poll of last week we asked the visitors of our sites whether the crisis made them spend more, less or the same amount of money. A majority of 39% of the almost 1,900 people who filled in our poll said they have been spending more, 31% said they have been spending less and 30% said the crisis did not make a difference for them.

When we started the poll, we had a short discussion on what to expect and the general idea was that the financial crisis would not have a huge effect on how wage-earners would behave. Companies, governments, whole industries might suffer from the global decline, but those who earn a salary have not yet seen huge declines, although the matter is clearly on the agenda for the summer of 2009. People are losing their jobs, but we did not anticipate a huge change in how much people would spend, although we did not expect so many people who actually spend more. Obvious, for many people the crisis also seems to offer opportunities.

Huge differences between countries
What we did not anticipate were the huge differences between countries. In Argentina 49% said they have been spending more, followed by 48% in Mexico. On the contrary, outside Latin America, some countries indicated they have been cutting back their expenses massively: Spain by 70%, the US by 55% en India by 52%. In both the UK and Chili more people said they had been reducing their expenditure compared to those who have spent more. 

Perhaps we can talk about a global financial crisis, but different parts of the globe behave differently.

This week our web poll will be about pensions. Who do you expect will take care of the major part of your pension?

The WageIndicator is an international, continuous web-based operation now in 45 countries. It provides free, accurate wage data through Salary Checks on national WageIndicator websites. It collects wage data through web surveys. Please note that, in contrast to our scientifically based Salary Checks, the results of our web polls are not scientifically tested.

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