Americans’ personal financial satisfaction rebounded from a dip in late 2018 to reach a record high in the first quarter of the year, according to the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), which tracks the quarterly indicator.
AICPA measures personal financial satisfaction by looking at stock market performance, job openings, home equity levels and an outlook from the business community to measure “financial pleasure” on the one hand, and “financial pain” on the other, by examining taxes, inflation, underemployment and loan delinquencies.
The stock market’s recovery from the last quarter of 2018 helped push up the reading to an index level of 36.1, which is 7.7 percent higher than the previous year and 3.7 percent higher than last quarter.{mosads}
“After a sharp decline in the stock market in the fourth quarter of 2018, stocks surged in the first quarter of 2019. Combined with near record high job openings, the market pushed Americans’ personal financial satisfaction to a new record high,” the group said.
The group also found that the level of on-time mortgages payments is at a nearly two decade-high.
The indicator will be welcome news to President Trump, who is hoping that a positive economic outlook will help him win reelection come 2020.
One of Trump’s major arguments will be the GOP tax law. According to AICPA, the “pain” level people feel from taxes dropped after the law passed, but remained relatively steady since.
About 65 percent of Americans saw their taxes go down, according to a Brookings analysis, though IRS data showed that refunds were down by an average of 2 percent this year.
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