Americans Lower Expectations for Making More Money

One year from now, will you be bringing home more money? According to CNBC, Americans now believe that their chances of bringing home more money are at the lowest in 25 years.

There are a number of different reasons why Americans aren't so sure that they will be bringing home more money this time next year. Just look at the economy and all the bad news surrounding it. Prices for food and gas keep rising, and businesses keep laying off workers or they aren't hiring.

According to Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs,

“Households are already very pessimistic about future real income growth,” wrote Goldman’s economist to clients. “A slowdown in job growth would presumably translate into a further deterioration in (expected and actual) real income growth. This would heighten the downside risks to our current forecast that real consumer spending will grow 2.5 percent to 3 percent over the next year and might call for another downward revision to our forecast for US GDP growth in 2011 and 2012.”

Again, you don't need an economist to tell you that people just aren't confident about the U.S. economy. That then leads people to not be very confident about their own future. Here in Lubbock though, we haven't been as impacted by the downturn as other cities in the U.S. and even in Texas. Our local economy is doing pretty good so that's something to be happy about.

So what about you? Do you think that you will be making more money next year or about the same? When do you think you will be confident again?