00:00 Speaker A
Credit card delinquency is on the rise, but my next guest is more focused on employment as an indicator of how healthy the consumer is. Let’s bring him in. Uh, Jay Rogers Niffin Worldwide CEO, Jen Niffin. Jen, good to see you.
00:08 Speaker A
We might say the economy is terrible, but then we say, hey, where’s my credit card?
00:13 Jen Niffin
Hey there.
00:14 Jen Niffin
Yeah, that’s exactly right. We’re saying the economy is terrible, we feel terrible, we’re going to vote everybody out of office, but in general, I still want to go spend. Why? Cuz I have a job. I think I’m going to keep my job and if I lost my job, I could get one paying just as much or more. That hasn’t changed as long as that doesn’t change and we don’t get too indebted, we’re going to spend and we’re not too indebted. We’re just as good on payback as we were in 2019. This consumer is going to go right through the end of the year spending despite $100 gas.
00:54 Speaker A
Did you just say we are paying back our balances, we’re paying our credit card at the best rate since 2019?
01:04 Jen Niffin
I said our ability to pay it back. So our ability to service our debt as a consumer is as good as it was in 2019. So we are not overloaded on our ability to spend. And that, given that and the fact that we all have a job at 4.1% unemployment, they will keep spending right through the holiday. So the 6% number we saw on sales growth in August, we could see that number running right on through the end of the year. I know the world’s saying 4.5, 4.8. I think it could be as high as five or 55, but it wouldn’t be ridiculous to think it could remain at that 6% level.
01:41 Speaker A
Who’s spending? What are we buying?
01:43 Jen Niffin
And we remember, when oil’s at $100 a barrel, it hurts people, but a whole bunch of people benefit, which is why you’re seeing good numbers out of boot barn and contour and Casey’s General store and tractor supply. People like that benefit when that oil patch type economy is growing.
