Americans are increasingly concerned about losing their jobs as elevated mortgage rates and inflationary goods keep them worried about paying for basic necessities like food and housing.
As the Fannie Mae (FNMA/OTCQB) Home Purchase Sentiment Index shows, customers are increasingly pessimistic about the housing market and a key factor could be Americans’ reduced job security.
Americans indicated that their personal economic situations are “showing signs of strain, including lower year-over-year household incomes and a reduced sense of job security,” Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist of the finance company, said. The nationally representative telephone survey polls 1,000 consumers monthly.
“In our view, all of this points to home purchase affordability remaining a problem for the foreseeable future, which we forecast will keep home sales sluggish into next year,” Duncan said.
Specifically, the report released this week indicated the number of Americans not concerned about losing their job in the next year decreased from 78 percent to 75 percent. Meanwhile, those concerned about losing their jobs rose from 22 percent to 23 percent.
Household income has not increased the way it had in years past, according to the report.
The percentage of respondents who said their household income was significantly higher than a year ago diminished from 22 percent to 18 percent. And those who said their household income was lower grew from 12 to 13 percent. Around 68 percent say it’s roughly the same.
Concerns over job loss initially picked up in 2022 when more than 40 percent of Americans believed they or someone they know would lose their job in the next six months, according to an Ipsos survey.
In June of this year, more people indicated they were concerned about layoffs, with 75 percent saying they worried about widespread job losses, according to a study by Morning Consult.
Despite recent fears over a recession, industries have been hiring more.
Roughly 9.6 million job openings were listed in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which was significantly higher than the anticipated 8.8 million openings from July.
Carl Van Horn, the director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, told Newsweek: “The increase in job quitting is driven by historically low levels of unemployment. The surge in job openings creates opportunities for employed and unemployed Americans to leave their current jobs and find better jobs that pay more or give them more flexibility for when and where they work.”
The number of workers quitting their jobs jumped from 3.62 million to 3.64 million since July, with layoffs staying steady at 1.68 million.
Americans are dealing with increased rates of financial stress as they continue to navigate inflation’s impact across all retail sectors.
“People are worried that the money they’ve saved won’t last and are worried they’re going to have to lean more on their credit cards and other sources of debt just to get by,” Bruce McClary, a senior vice president at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, told CNBC.
Housing Market Sentiment Is Low
Overall, the home purchase sentiment index dropped by 2.4 points to 64.5 in September, with only 16 percent of consumers saying it was a good time to buy a home.
Most Americans aren’t very optimistic about mortgage rates either, with only 17 percent saying they expect them to go down within the year.
“Mortgage rates persistently over 7 percent appear to be deepening the malaise consumers feel about the home purchase market,” Duncan said. “In fact, high mortgage rates surpassed high home prices as the top reason why consumers think it’s a bad time to buy a home, a survey first.”

Newsweek