U.S consumer is stronger than the data shows

Nancy Tengler, CEO of Laffer Tangler Investments, explains why the American consumer is stronger than reports show.

Transcript

00:00How are you thinking about the consumer overall? We did, of course, see retail sales fall more than

00:05expected last month. The economy, though, has been pretty resilient. The consumer has been

00:11pretty resilient. Is that kind of the first signs of cracks that we're seeing in the consumer? And

00:16what does that mean for the overall economy? Well, Caroline, I think what we saw was the

00:20consumer that pulled back after actually bringing increasing demand ahead of the tariffs,

00:27so sort of front running the tariffs. And then you saw a breather afterwards. But what you also saw,

00:33no one's really talking about, is that the savings rate went up for the very same reason.

00:38People tend to spend out of what is called their permanent income, and then they save the rest.

00:44Well, because they had spent so much the previous month, you saw savings increase. That's going to

00:49provide a cushion. I don't think the consumer is done. It's going to, you know, it's not going to be

00:54sort of bullish across every retail environment. There's going to be winners and losers. But I do

01:02think that the consumer is still healthy. Average hourly earnings have gone up. I don't think we're

01:07done yet with the consumer.