Economic Expectations and Spending Plans of Consumers
THE investigation reported here was a part of a survey of consumer use and purchase of furniture in Flint, Michigan, spring, I95I.1 The annual nationwide Surveys of Consumer Finances 2 have reported consumers' economic expectations and buying plans, but these have been more narrowly defined than in the Flint Study. In the Surveys the head of the spending unit I is asked about his income outlook, what he thinks will happen to prices, and his buying plans for a home, an automobile, and for selected durable goods. The Flint sample was drawn from a city of 48,I59 households (in I950) with one dominant industry automotive manufacturing. It included only primary spending units keeping house and using (or having definite plans for using) their own furniture. From the original stratified random sample, 8 per cent were excluded because they were renters of furnished quarters with no definite plans for using their own furniture, and I3 per cent could not be interviewed. It was judged satisfactory to treat the final sample (428 spending units) as a random one in the analysis. Spending units including husband and wife (called normalfamily units) made up 84 per cent of the survey sample (2I9 with children and I39 without), i i per cent were single-person units, and 5 per cent were broken-family units (with children). Economic expectations. After the homemaker had stated the previous year's income, she was asked (i) Do you expect to have more to this year (I95I) than you had in I950? Less? About the same? and (2 ) Why do you say so? The reasons given were chiefly in relation to income expected. However, a number of the replies indicated that money to spend was thought of as left after taxes and fixed or routine expenses (including debt payments and common necessities) were accounted for. The percentage distribution of reasons given for specific expectations is shown below. Percentages are not additive because some respondents gave more than one reason.
- DOI
- 10.2307/1925904
- Volume
- 36 (4)
- Pages
- 451
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