Americans' fears of job loss are growing
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Job security jitters are on the rise. And why not? Recession chatter is all over the news (guilty ✋).
The big picture: The job market is still strong, with unemployment at a near-record low 3.6% — but the Federal Reserve wants to drive that up a bit to fight inflation. Workers have gotten the message.
Driving the news: Across all income brackets, the share of workers who fear a loss of employment income over the next month rose in June from the prior month, according to polling from the Morning Consult/Axios Inequality Index.
- In the lower-income group, that’s a reversal from May when job loss expectations trended down.
- Among those in the higher-income group, the share expecting job loss jumped by more than 5 percentage points — to its highest level in the last year (15.7%).
Worth noting: Especially in the higher-income group, the fears don’t yet line up with reality. The number of higher-income respondents who said they actually lost employment income in the prior four weeks was just 7%, basically unchanged from May.
The bottom line: "I think the feeling is just that something's not right about the economy, and it's starting to spook workers," says Jesse Wheeler, Morning Consult economic analyst.
