Financial Services academyrecruiting on 09 Nov 2007 01:02 pm
Discretionary income has actually risen for many
There’s an interesting story from the AP yesterday called “More Americans have extra spending money” which quotes a new report from The Conference Board.
Lots of information in that short article, but here are a couple key points. First:
“The percentage of U.S. households with discretionary income rose to 64 percent last year from 52 percent in 2002…”
And, more importantly, particularly for someone interested in a financial services career:
“More than three out of every four discretionary dollars flows to householders earning $100,000 or more,” Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board’s consumer research center, said in a statement. “And their discretionary income is more than 2.5 times above average.”
While as a financial advisor you can deal with people across a broad range of income levels, the group described above is certainly right in the “sweet spot” for many advisors. And what this means is that even with rising gas prices, a turbulent market, and so on, many people, especially those in that income range, actually have more money to spend…and invest.
