A new poll from market research firm TrendSource shows people’s perception of the future political climate influences their likelihood to make big-ticket purchases.
The company surveyed 1,971 respondents between June 7 and 14 to try to better understand the relationship between individuals’ perception of the political and economic climate and their willingness to make a big-ticket purchase. They found there is a direct relationship between people’s forecast of the political future and their purchase behavior.
Those who believe the political landscape will be worse in 6 months are 79.5 percent less likely to make a big-ticket purchase than those who believe it will get better. Furthermore, increased conservatism among respondents was directly correlated with higher ratings of the current and future political and economic climates.
“This data suggests that intentions to purchase big ticket items may be more influenced by fears of political instability than economic concerns,” said TrendSource senior analytics manager Brian Harward, in a news release. “So much goes into influencing whether people think politics will get better or worse, but fascinatingly that perception also can shape purchasing behavior.”
The survey speaks to some of those influences. For example, when segmenting respondents into those who racially identify as white and nonwhite, the firm found some interesting trends. A staggering 64 percent of nonwhite respondents believed the political and economic future would be worse than today; roughly 1/3 less, only 41 percent of white respondents felt the same.
Furthermore, money begets optimism. They broke household income into seven $25,000 buckets starting from less than $25,000 all the way to more than $150,000; not only were the wealthiest among the most optimistic about the nations’ economic future, they were also far likelier to make big-ticket purchases. In fact, every increase in $25,000 of annual household income made that household 23.5 percent more likely to make a big-ticket purchase.
