Morning Consult Survey: Most Adults with Financial Goals Confident They Will Make Progress This Year, While Many Struggle to Make Ends Meet
A recent Morning Consult survey found that 75 percent of Americans with 2023 financial goals are confident they will make progress this year, even though nearly 3 in 4 U.S. adults think the country is either in a recession or will be in a recession within the next year. 89 percent of those with financial goals this year named creating and maintaining a budget as a top goal for 2023.
Millennials were more likely to say they have financial goals for this year than baby boomers, and 83 percent of the former were confident they would make financial progress, compared to 76 percent of baby boomers. Behind making and maintaining a budget, creating an emergency fund and evening out monthly spending were top priorities for adults that set financial goals.
Jesse Mecham, founder of You Need A Budget, said that many clients who make a budget become more inspired to meet their financial goals. “It’s fun to see people deploy the same amount of resources, but do it in a way that lines up with what they truly care about. And suddenly they are reaching their goals,” he said.
Many consumer goals for this year align with their financial struggles last year. For half of respondents, reducing debt and creating an emergency fund were challenging in 2022, as savings from the federal government during the pandemic dwindled and decreased spending during lockdowns ended.
Adults across income levels reported similar outlooks to the difficulty they felt in achieving their goals. 67 percent of those making less than $50,000 annually said they thought they would have difficulty, while 66 percent of those making $50,000 to $100,000 and 58 percent of those making over $100,000 said the same.
Many respondents said that rising prices impacted their financial goals, while others celebrated keeping their heads above water or making progress on the basics, like getting a job for many Gen Z respondents.
