Financial wellbeing in the June 2023 tracker
Summary
- As the summer begins, the weather might be improving, but households’ financial situations remain poor. Households were slightly more likely to report missing a housing, bill or credit payment this month compared to last month (6.9% in May rose to 7.2% in the month to June 9th)
- More than half of households had made an adjustment to cover essential spending in the last month (56%)
- While consumers’ confidence in their future household financial situations continue to improve, consumers’ outlook on the future UK economy dipped slightly
Financial difficulty levels remain high and earlier signs of improvement falter
Back in May we reported that levels of financial difficulties that consumers’ have been experiencing were showing early signs of improvement. This seems to have faltered in the month to June 9th with the proportion of consumers making at least one adjustment to cover essential spending sitting at similar levels to May (56% in June compared to 55% in May). This is, however, still lower than the levels seen earlier this year that ranged between 59% and 60% in January to April.
We saw a small increase in the proportion of households who had missed a housing, bill, loan or credit payment in the last month (up to 7.2% in June, compared to 6.9% in May).
Looking at households that struggled with bill payments in the month to June 9th (4.5%), the most common types of missed bills amongst these households were energy bills (42%), council tax payments (40%), water bills (38%) and broadband and/or television package bills (32%). Many of these households struggled to pay multiple bill payments, with six in ten (60%) of those missing a bill payment reporting that two or more types of household bills in June were missed.
Consumer confidence in future household situation continues to improve
Consumers’ level of confidence in their future household situation continued to improve in the month to June 9th, alongside a small improvement in how consumers rate their current financial situation. In contrast, confidence in the future UK economy dipped slightly.
Just over a fifth of consumers (23%) said they think their household financial situation will get better over the next 12 months, whilst 33% said they think it will get worse, giving a net confidence of -10. This is the highest level of future consumer confidence in the last 18 months and is up five points from last month (-15). Consumers’ rating of their current financial situation also increased this month, up to a net score of +25 from +19 last month. Despite this small increase, we are still consistently seeing ratings at a lower level than in the second half of 2020 and 2021.
Confidence in the UK economy over the next 12 months dipped in the month to June 9th, decreasing three points from -28 to -31. This is calculated from a majority of consumers who think the UK economy will get worse over the next 12 months (51%) and a fifth of consumers (20%) who think it will get better. This may reflect news coverage in early June that predicted the economy will enter a recession later this year.
This month's insights suggests that, despite little change in current financial difficulties and increasing pessimism about the future UK economy, consumers’ confidence in their household situation continues to slowly improve.
Methodology
The fieldwork was conducted by Yonder on behalf of Which between 9th to 11th June 2023. A sample of 2,067 consumers was surveyed online and weighted to be nationally representative.