To succeed in the current retail
infation-adjusted 2012 income
environment, it’s important to
level but still nearly $4,500 below
understand the key factors that
what they earned before the start of
are impacting consumers’ buying
the recession in 2007. Middle-class
behavior. With this knowledge,
incomes have been either stagnant
retailers can then take steps to
or declining since peaking in 1999.
meet their customers’ evolving
As a result, median household
needs and wants—while boosting
income in the United States is now
their bottom line.
actually less than it was in 1989— nearly a quarter of a century ago.1
Economic pressures: recession afershocks
Particularly hard hit by recession
The recession may be over, but
aftershocks are lower-income con-
consumers are still feeling the
sumers, who now make up almost a
aftershocks.
third of the U.S. population. Nearly 104 million Americans fall into the
According to an analysis of U.S.
low-income category, defned as
Census Bureau data by Amer-
those earning between 100 and 199
icanProgress.org, the typical
percent of the federal poverty line.
middle-class household earned
Yet this large group of consumers
$51,939 in 2013, a statistically
presents an enormous opportunity
insignifcant $181 above their
for retailers, with nearly $833 billion in spending power, most of which is
Lower-income consumers: an opportunity for retailers
spent on necessities.2
The Census Bureau esTimaTes ThaT 106,376,000 ameriCans live on inComes aT 200% of The poverTy line and Below.
State of the plate: what America eats for breakfast Cereal remains Americans’ No. 1 choice for breakfast. According to a 2014 survey among 1,000 U.S. con-
34%
LOW-incOmE cOnSumErS
sumers by Carbonview Research, on any given weekday, 60 percent of adults and 79 percent of kids start a typical morning with their favorite cereal before heading off to work or school, making it the most commonly consumed breakfast food in the country. When asked which foods they feel defne breakfast, cereal came in second out of 20 options—surpassed only by eggs.3
Source: Census.gov
2
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