Financial wellbeing in April 2023
Summary
- 7.3% of households reported having missed a housing, bill or credit payment in the last month in April, compared to 8.8% in March.
- 59% of households had made an adjustment to cover essential spending in the last month, remaining consistent with the high levels observed over the past year.
- All measures of consumer confidence worsened slightly, checking the tentative recovery of the past few months.
Financial difficulty levels remain consistently high
The proportion of households who had missed a housing, bill, loan or credit card payment in the last month was at 7.3% in April, slightly but not significantly lower than the 8.8% seen in March.
This drop follows three consecutive months of high missed payment rates above 8%. The 7.3% observed this month is in line with the level seen at the same time last year, but higher than in April 2021 (6.5%) and April 2020 (5.2%).
Bills remain the most common type of missed payment among the population as a whole (4.4%), and energy is the most common type of missed bill (2.0%), followed by council tax (1.6%).
However, housing missed payments were particularly high among renters (5.2%), but also fairly high among mortgage holders (3.1%).
Six in ten (59%) households reported making at least one adjustment to cover essential spending such as utility bills, housing costs, groceries, school supplies and medicines in the last month. Adjustments include cutting back on essentials, dipping into savings, selling possessions or borrowing. This is consistent with the high adjustment level seen for the past year, and matches the level seen in April 2022, but is much higher than the 35% seen two years ago.
The recovery in consumer confidence has faltered
The beginnings of a recovery in consumer confidence seen over the past few months may be faltering, with all three measures of confidence having dropped slightly in April compared to in March. Less than a fifth (17%) of consumers said they think the UK economy will get better over the next 12 months, whilst 55% said they think it will get worse, giving a net confidence in the future economy of -38. This is an improvement on the -59 level last April, but remains firmly in the negative. It is well below the high of +26 in May 2021 and below pre-pandemic levels.
People’s confidence in their current household finances sits at +18, which is consistent with April 2022 and with pre-pandemic levels, but lower than the +42 seen in April 2021. Confidence in future household finances remains firmly in the negative, at -22.
Methodology
The fieldwork was conducted by Yonder on behalf of Which between 12th and 13th April 2023. A sample of 2,082 consumers was surveyed online and weighted to be nationally representative.