David Tinsley
speaker
25 appearances
3 recordings
2 series
first heard Feb 2026
last heard 12 Jun
David Tinsley’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Even if you take gas out of the equation, spending was up 3.9%.
Consumers also bought more tickets to fly, despite airfare being up 27% from last year.
David Tinsley is senior economist at the Bank of America Institute, and he says the spending is continuing despite economic tailwinds from inflation.
Almost to a surprising extent, most consumers are weathering those.
But there are some tension points for lower and middle income households.
Their spending growth is actually running still a little bit ahead of their wage growth.
Meaning some consumers have to make that up in other ways, like cutting into how much they're saving or what savings they have.
Stephen Basaha, NPR News.
I think the story is a good one.
The jobs growth, at least at the start of this year, had some real momentum behind it.
while lower-income households have wage growth of below 1%.
David Tinsley at the Bank of America Institute is starting to notice that a simple K-shape doesn't totally summarize the situation anymore.
According to January customer data, middle-income household spending growth was just 1%, compared to 2.5% for high-income households.
At Big Chalk Analytics, which works with retailers, restaurants and companies that make packaged goods, Rick Miller says he doesn't really think of spending as a straightforward K these days either.
Which is why he likes to split consumers up by whether or not they're making tradeoffs.
He says tradeoff consumers are actively cutting the size of the products they're buying, going for a 12-pack of soda instead of a 30-pack, for example.
They're also visiting more stores in search of the best deals.
So he says retailers are promoting their own store brands.
Jessica Ramirez is the co-founder of the advisory business, the Consumer Collective.
She says those who are still spending are focused on value, which means retailers are looking hard at the assortment of products they offer.
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