The Economic Recession, Are We Making Progress? “The Millionaire Nurses View”

This gallup poll  on upper income spending and comparison to middle-lower income spending is fascinating to me.  Maybe that is because I am a personal finance nerd.

Why is it  important to you what upper income people are doing with their money?

• You may be “upper income.”  The definition was a household income over $90,000 per year.  With two nurses or two school teachers in the family, that level of income is certainly common and reachable for many!
• If you are not in that group- Those in the upper income group usually have significantly more disposable income-so when they spend, the economy grows, businesses start hiring, and the whole economic engine gets revved up!

So what were the results of the poll?

For upper-income:

• The daily spending average for the upper-income family dropped 14% since January of this year.
• Down 19% since a year ago, and down 34%  since 2008.
• This in the face of the “recession is over” according to the feds and economists.

For middle and lower income:

• Spending is flat for this year, and over the past year
• Their spending is down 42% since 2008.

What are economic factors now versus last year?

• Gas prices are much higher this year than last-and going up steadily-this harms middle and lower income folks more than upper income families.
• Upper-income families are stressed emotionally about concerns of increased health care costs and higher taxes-resulting in their holding down their spending.
• Both groups are affected by the housing downturn-making all homeowners feel less wealthy.
• The high unemployment rate of almost 10% and the under-employment rate of 19% makes everyone nervous-they know they may be next….
• And for those of us in health-care, the economic uncertainties are multiplied with hospitals, patients, and all the others employed in the field such as pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies worried that the shoe is about to drop.

So what should “Millionaire Nurses” do about this stuff????

• Stay the course, if you have a job, be the best you can be, to decrease the chance you will be “volunteered to leave”.
• Keep your financial condition in great shape-ie save  more money, cut back on spending, have an emergency fund.
• Put off elective purchases until things stabilize further.  This is not the time to “take chances.”
• Continue to give and help others-that is a great way to make you feel good in any economy. If you can’t give money, give time.
• Work on your spiritual self.  Costs you nothing, provides immeasurable benefits…

If you have comments or questions about the economy, let us hear from you.    What is happening at your job, regarding hiring freezes, limiting over-time, lay-offs and furloughs????

And if you need “Emergency Money Resuscitation” sign up for my free E-book,  free newsletter, and free mini-course on personal finance at The Millionaire Nurse. Do it today, don’t put it off- it is free!!!!

Tags: are we getting out of recession, economic recession, economy and nurses, layoffs and nurses, success in this economy

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Nursing Profession, personal finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.