The takeaway

Expectations about personal finance conditions are at the heart of consumer confidence‚ and that confidence impacts spending, saving, and overall economic activity.

The Bankrate Consumer Survey

Our FRED graph above shows data from the Bankrate Consumer Survey, conducted annually each November or December. The survey asks US adults whether they expect their personal financial situation to be better, worse, or the same in the coming year. The graph shows two overall (or “net”) measures: the share who say better (solid blue line) and the share who say worse (dashed green line).

Between 2018 and 2025, the period when the data are available, the share of survey respondents expecting their finances to worsen grew from 12% to 32%. During those years, the share of survey respondents expecting their finances to improve shrank from 44% to 34%.

Bankrate weights the collected survey responses to reflect the broad makeup of the US adult population, and the pattern in forward-looking expectations described above complements what we discussed in a recent FRED Blog post about the perceived economic well-being of households reported through the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED).

Put together, the Bankrate and SHED surveys help paint a picture of present conditions and future confidence about the state of personal finances and the overall economy. When current well-being is broadly positive but year-ahead optimism is tepid, the result may be more cautious spending and saving by households. Time will tell.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Bankrate Consumer Survey Poll: What is Your Personal Finance Outlook This Year? Better (Net).” Click on the “Edit Graph” button and select the “Add Line” tab to search for “Bankrate Consumer Survey Poll: What is Your Personal Finance Outlook This Year? Worse (Net).” Don’t forget to click on “Add data series.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

Every quarter, FOMC meeting participants submit their projections of the most likely outcomes for key economic indicators. The committee releases the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) containing the median, central tendency, and range of their projections for the civilian unemployment rate, headline and core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation rates, real GDP growth, and the appropriate federal funds rate. Projections are generally provided for the current year, the next two years, and the “longer run.” In this post, we examine the June SEP, which includes projections from 18 of the 19 members of the FOMC. It was the first release under the new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, who did not submit projections. We use ALFRED to look at several recent projections for the unemployment rate, core PCE inflation, and real GDP growth, and the federal funds rate through 2028.

Our first ALFRED graph, above, shows the unemployment rate projections for the fourth quarters of 2026, 2027, and 2028 according to the past four SEP releases. Most recently, as shown by the gold bar, the median FOMC participant projects the unemployment rate will average 4.3% in Q4 2026 and Q4 2027 and then fall to 4.2% in Q4 2028. The 2027 and 2028 projections for the most recent release are the same as in the March release. These projections are consistent with a stable labor market near its longer-run unemployment rate.

Our second graph, above, contains the core inflation rate projections for the same years as the first graph. They show greater revisions than the unemployment projections. A noticeable change from the most recent projection is that Q4 2026 core inflation has been revised upward from 2.7% to 3.3%. This also is the case for Q4 2027, where it was revised upward from 2.2% in the March projection to 2.5% in June. This suggests the median FOMC participant sees near-term inflation remaining more persistent than previously expected.

Our third graph, above, shows the real GDP growth projections for the same years. The most recent projection showed a slight revision downward for Q4 2026 from 2.4% to 2.2%; but it was the same as the March projection for Q4 2027, at 2.3%. For 2028, there was a slight upward revision from 2.1% to 2.2%, but overall the median participant forecasts growth to be stable over the next few years.

Our final graph, above, shows the median participant’s projection of the federal funds rate. The most recent projection has been revised upward from 3.4% to 3.8% for Q4 2026. Upward revisions are also visible in the following years. The median participant now projects an average federal funds rate of 3.6% in Q4 2027 and 3.4% in Q4 2028. Notice that there’s no green bar for the December vintage. This is because the SEP projections for the federal funds rate were exactly the same as the September vintage projections. We’re able to see the March vintage in ALFRED because the 2025 vintages also included end-of-year values for 2025, which means there was a change in the data in March when the 2025 projections were no longer reported.

How these graphs were created: Search ALFRED for “FOMC unemployment” and take the median projection. Click on “Edit Graph,” choose a bar graph, and add four bars with the same series again. Finally, select the proper vintage for each bar. Change the dates to 2026-01-01 to 2028-01-01. For the other graphs, proceed similarly with “FOMC PCE core,” “FOMC GDP,” and “FOMC federal funds rate.”

Suggested by John Fuller and Charles Gascon.

Since 2013, the Federal Reserve Board has conducted the SHED—the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. It measures the economic well-being of U.S. households and identifies potential risks to their finances, with categories such as credit access and behaviors, savings, retirement, economic fragility, and education and student loans.

Our FRED graph above shows the shares of adults who report “doing okay financially” or “living comfortably” separated into levels of educational attainment. Higher levels of formal education are consistently associated with higher reports of comfortable living conditions. More education generally means more human capital and income, which results in a more positive overall financial self-assessment.

In the 2025 SHED, 73% of adults reported okay or comfortable financial conditions. But certain demographic groups, including low-income, young, and Black adults, saw meaningful declines in their economic well-being. You can find these data in FRED.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking: At Least Doing Okay Financially: Education, Bachelor’s Degree or More.” Click on the “Edit Graph” button and select the “Add Line” tab to search for “Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking: At Least Doing Okay Financially: Education, Some College / Technical or Associate Degree.” Don’t forget to click on “Add data series.” Repeat the last two steps to add data for the other series in the graph.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.