The most recent Discover Financial Services' U.S. SpendingMonitor survey suggests that credit unions will have to wait a bitlonger for members' use of credit cards to return to previouslevels.

The firm dropped its index of U.S. consumer spending intentionsfrom 86.2 in May to 85.6 in June and reported that, overall, 59% ofthose surveyed rated the state of the U.S. economy as poor, anincrease of four percentage points over the previous month.

For the third straight month, less than half of consumers, 47%,have money left over after paying the monthly bills, one pointlower than the previous month. Of those who do have money leftover, 79% plan on having the same or more money left over than theprevious month, a one point increase from the previous month,Discover reported.

"The optimism we were seeing from consumers in terms of the economyover the past few months may have hit a roadblock in June," saidJulie Loeger, senior vice president of brand and product managementfor Discover Financial Services. "With unemployment still risingand uncertainty as to whether the economic recession is ending,consumers are seeing no reason to change the spending restraintthey've exhibited over the last several months."

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking credit union news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts.
  • Weekly Shared Accounts podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders.
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders.
  • Critical coverage of the commercial real estate and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, GlobeSt.com and ThinkAdvisor.com.
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.