Consumer Behavior

Bank of America reports spending up 11%

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May 5, 2022

The Bank of America Institute reports that spending is up 11% from last year in March, despite concerns over inflation. In addition, spending in the first eight days of April was up by 15% compared to last year, according to a press release.

Other findings include:

• Card spending is up 33.3% among cardholders with less than $50,000 in annual income.
• Bank of America ACH, wire and P2P payments were up 26% in the first eight days of April.
• Customers with less than $50,000 annual income have at least $1,500 more in checking and savings accounts.

"While sentiment surveys show that consumers are inclined to cut back in response to higher prices, people don't always do what they say they are doing," David Tinsley, senior economist for the Bank of America Institute, said in the release. "Leveraging the breadth and depth of our comprehensive payments and spending data from 67 million consumer and small business clients, we are able to get a richer and deeper assessment of the consumer than small-scale surveys can ever achieve. Our data does not support all the gloom."