For much of the past two years, U.S. economic growth has rested on an uncomfortable truth: it has been carried disproportionately by high-income households. While inflation, housing costs, and credit tightening constrained most consumers, those earning over $100,000 continued to spend—and in doing so, propped up GDP growth.
That support is now wavering.
According to the January 2026 Macro Update from Morning Consult, consumer confidence among high-income earners has fallen sharply and unusually fast, prompting a downgrade of sentiment risk for this group from Medium to High . Over just 16 days, the Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS) for households earning more than $100,000 declined by 17.4 points, a 12.3% drop in only 30 days—one of the steepest declines in the series’ history.
For impact investors, this is not a curiosity. It is a leading indicator.
The Consumer-Led Growth Model Is Showing Its Limits
Morning Consult’s data make clear why this shift matters. In 2025, nearly all real spending growth came from high-income consumers, while spending by lower- and middle-income households stagnated or declined in real terms .
This dynamic masked structural weaknesses:
Rising economic precarity below the top income tier
Limited wage growth relative to costs for most workers
Heavy reliance on asset-rich households to sustain demand
Impact investors have long warned that growth concentrated at the top is not resilient growth. When confidence erodes among those households, the broader economy loses its final buffer.
This Time Is Different—and That’s the Risk
Historically, sharp declines in high-income confidence have coincided with equity market selloffs—during the 2018 market correction, the onset of COVID-19, and the 2022 inflation shock. But Morning Consult highlights a crucial distinction: the current collapse in sentiment is not being driven by stock market losses .
Instead, the decline is broad-based across all five components of sentiment:
Expectations for personal finances
Perceptions of current business conditions
Outlook for future economic growth
Willingness to make major purchases
This suggests a deeper reassessment of economic security, not just portfolio values.
Labor Market Anxiety Has Reached the Professional Class
One of the most consequential findings in the report is the rise in pay-loss expectations among high-income workers. Even as headline employment remains relatively stable, a growing share of professionals expect to lose income in the near term .
This reflects a structural shift that impact investors should take seriously:
AI and automation are reshaping white-collar labor markets
Income volatility is spreading up the earnings distribution
Job insecurity is no longer confined to low-wage sectors
Confidence is falling not because households are already experiencing hardship, but because they increasingly believe their insulation from risk is gone.
Inflation Expectations Are Re-Anchoring—Upward
Compounding these anxieties, Morning Consult shows that inflation expectations rose in December, even as gasoline prices declined . This divergence signals skepticism that price stability has truly been restored.
For impact-oriented capital, this matters because persistent inflation expectations disproportionately harm:
Renters
Workers without pricing power
Small and minority-owned businesses
When higher-income households lose confidence, they pull back. When inflation expectations remain elevated, lower-income households fall further behind. Together, these forces widen inequality and suppress sustainable demand.
Consumer Health Is Already Deteriorating
The report shows that declines in high-income sentiment have already translated into a sharp deterioration in the Consumer Health Index for that group, dragging down overall consumer health readings across the economy .
Once high-income consumers shift from spending to precautionary saving, the effects cascade:
Reduced discretionary spending
Slower small-business revenue growth
Higher risk for service-sector employment
For impact investors focused on community resilience, this is where macro signals become local realities.
What This Means for Impact Investing in 2026
This data does not guarantee a recession. Past episodes show that sentiment can stabilize without a full economic contraction. But it does underscore three lessons central to impact investing:
Growth concentrated at the top is fragile
Confidence is as important as income in sustaining demand
Labor-market insecurity is now a system-wide risk, not a niche issue
The takeaway is clear: sustainable economic growth cannot rely on a narrow slice of households to carry consumption while the majority tread water. Impact investing strategies that strengthen wage growth, job security, affordable housing, and access to capital are no longer just socially desirable—they are macroeconomically necessary.
When even the highest earners begin to pull back, the economy is signaling that underlying imbalances have gone unresolved for too long.
Source: Morning Consult, “January 2026 Macro Update: Confidence is Plunging Among High-Income Earners,” January 13, 2026.