Economic trends forecasters don’t have a lot of shiny, happy predictions for the economy in 2023, but there are some positive trends. The International Monetary Fund predicts global growth will slow to 2.7% next year, a slight drop of 0.2 percentage points from its July forecast. While many economic analysts are tiptoeing around using the word “recession,” for millions of financially stretched Americans, 2023 will feel like a recession.
As Dan Emery noted in October in the State of the Industry Report, continued price inflation coupled with low unemployment are likely to continue to put upward pressure on the cost of labor. On the consumer side, shoppers are trading down to value-priced items and store private labels to stretch purchasing power. Whether this trading down will be a permanent change in shopping habits or a temporary cope in an inflationary market remains to be seen.