79 posts on "Expectations"
April 11, 2025
Recent Shifts Seen in Consumers’ Public Policy Expectations
In this post we examine changes in households’ beliefs following the release of the December 2024 SCE Public Policy Survey, finding large shifts in consumer expectations about future changes in fiscal policy. Households assign higher likelihoods to a variety of tax cuts and to reductions in a range of transfer programs, while they assign lower likelihoods to tax hikes and expansions in entitlement programs. We do not find these sharp changes translate into meaningful shifts in median households’ near-term expectations about the evolution of the overall economy, nor do they appear to have significantly affected median near-term expectations about the household’s own income and spending growth.
Posted at 7:00 am in Expectations, Fiscal Policy, Household Finance, Inflation, Student Loans | Permalink
October 2, 2024
Exposure to Generative AI and Expectations About Inequality
With the rise of generative AI (genAI) tools such as ChatGPT, many worry about the tools’ potential displacement effects in the labor market and the implications for income inequality. In supplemental questions to the February 2024 Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE), we asked a representative sample of U.S. residents about their experience with genAI tools. We find that relatively few people have used genAI, but that those who have used it have a bleaker outlook on its impacts on jobs and future inequality.
August 19, 2024
An Update on the Reservation Wages in the SCE Labor Market Survey
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s July 2024 SCE Labor Market Survey shows a year-over-year increase in the average reservation wage—the lowest wage respondents would be willing to accept for a new job—to $81,147, but a decline from a series’ high of $81,822 in March 2024. In this post, we investigate how the recent dynamics of reservation wages differed across individuals and how reservation wages are related to individuals’ expectations about their future labor market movements.
May 9, 2024
The Post‑Pandemic Shift in Retirement Expectations in the U.S.
One of the most striking features of the labor market recovery following the pandemic recession has been the surge in quits from 2021 to mid-2023. This surge, often referred to as the Great Resignation, or the Great Reshuffle, was uncommonly large for an economic expansion. In this post, we call attention to a related labor market change that has not been previously highlighted—a persistent change in retirement expectations, with workers reporting much lower expectations of working full-time beyond ages 62 and 67. This decline is particularly notable for female workers and lower-income workers.
April 16, 2024
The Survey of Consumer Expectations: A Look Back at the Past Decade
It has been a little over ten years since we started releasing findings from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE). In this post, we review some of the headline findings from the first decade of the survey’s history, highlighting the evolution of consumers’ expectations about inflation and labor market outcomes.
Posted at 7:00 am in Expectations | Permalink
August 17, 2023
Consumers’ Perspectives on the Recent Movements in Inflation
Editors Note: The title of this post has been changed from the original. August 17, 2023, 10:35 a.m.
Inflation in the U.S. has experienced unusually large movements in the last few years, starting with a steep rise between the spring of 2021 and June 2022, followed by a relatively rapid decline over the past twelve months. This marks a stark departure from an extended period of low and stable inflation. Economists and policymakers have expressed differing views about which factors contributed to these large movements (as reported in the media here, here, here, and here), leading to fierce debates in policy circles, academic journals, and the press. We know little, however, about the consumer’s perspective on what caused these sudden movements in inflation. In this post, we explore this question using a special module of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE) in which consumers were asked what they think contributed to the recent movements in inflation. We find that consumers think supply-side issues were the most important factor behind the 2021-22 inflation surge, while they regard Federal Reserve policies as the most important factor behind the recent and expected future decline in inflation.
August 2, 2023
Why Do Forecasters Disagree about Their Monetary Policy Expectations?
While forecasters generally disagree about the expected path of monetary policy, the level of disagreement as measured in the New York Fed’s Survey of Primary Dealers (SPD) has increased substantially since 2022. For instance, the dispersion of expectations about the future path of the target federal funds rate (FFR) has widened significantly. What explains the current elevated disagreement in FFR forecasts?
June 27, 2023
Not Just “Stimulus” Checks: The Marginal Propensity to Repay Debt
Households frequently use stimulus checks to pay down existing debt. In this post, we discuss the empirical evidence on this marginal propensity to repay debt (MPRD), and we present new findings using the Survey of Consumer Expectations. We find that households with low net wealth-to-income ratios were more prone to use transfers from the CARES Act of March 2020 to pay down debt. We then show that standard models of consumption-saving behavior can be made consistent with these empirical findings if borrowers’ interest rates rise with debt. Our model suggests that fiscal policy may face a trade-off between increasing aggregate consumption today and assisting those with the largest debt balances.
June 23, 2023
The Credibility of Government Policies: Conference in Honor of Guillermo Calvo
Guillermo Calvo is a leading member of a group of economists who revolutionized macroeconomics by modeling how incentives and the anticipation of future policies affect aggregate outcomes. In celebration of his work, a conference was held in his honor at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and at Columbia University on February 22-24, 2023. The conference program can be found on the event website. A longer version of this post with additional detail on the proceedings can be found here.
December 19, 2022
SCE Labor Market Survey Shows Average Reservation Wage Continues Upward Trend
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s November 2022 SCE Labor Market Survey shows a rise in the average reservation wage—the lowest wage respondents would be willing to accept for a new job—to $73,667, its highest level since the series began in 2014. Respondents’ satisfaction with wage compensation, non-wage benefits, and promotion opportunities at their current job all improved in November compared to July. Regarding expectations, the average expected wage offer (conditional on receiving one) also increased and reached a new high.
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