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Who you ask, American consumers are unleashed under pressure or are doing very well.
HAS McDonald'sEven value meals of $ 5 have struggled to try customers in stores. The fast food giant reported a 3.6% drop in store sales in the United States for the quarter that ended in March. It is the largest quarterly fall from one year to the next since Covid. The uncertainty triggered by the pricing wars of President Donald Trump not only prompted certain companies to set up their spending plans. American consumers do the same.
Historically, fast food chains tend to do well when times become difficult. The guests seeking to save a few dollars exchange restaurants with full service, or fast box – the name of the industry for outfits that have a counter -service but are marketed as more classy than the average hamburger.
But this defensive trade is not what McDonald's sees. He said the pressure on low -income consumers had started to spread in average income consumers. People simply do not visit golden arches as often.
It is a problem on the scale of the industry. Chipotle, Domino's Pizza, Starbucks, Pizza Hut and KFC have all reported a slowdown in their American activities. Consumer goods companies such as Pepsico and Procter & Gamble also indicated a hurried client.
However, not everyone tightens their belts. Credit card companies, including American Express and payment processors such as Visa, continue to see solid expenses among Americans.
One of the reasons is that they are particularly exposed to the only group that still seems to eat and enjoy life: high wages. American Express and JpmorganAround richer users with higher credit scores, a 7% increase in American credit card expenses in the first quarter. At Visa, spending among the “richest” resulted in 6% growth in American payment volume during the same period.
Some expenses have probably been simply advanced while Americans rush to buy products to get ahead of Trump's prices. At least, this is a way to read official data that showed that personal expenses increased by 0.7% in March. Credit card expenditure can also benefit from low -income users based on their cards to pay purchases.
The fact that a softening saving strikes people in different payment media is clear. But the impact tends to slip into high employees over time. Righter consumers cannot yet rethink their lunch plans, but McDonald's has given a flavor of what could soon be a much wider problem.
