Morning Consult Launches Consumer Health Index Showing Consumer Demand Resilient, But Not Without Warning Signs

NEW YORK — September 4, 2025 — Morning Consult today announced the launch of its Consumer Health Index (CHI), a monthly consumer demand benchmark designed to fill the gaps left by lagging, traditional economic indicators. Drawing on more than 5,000 daily interviews, CHI blends real-time sentiment with employment trends to deliver an earlier and more nuanced read on consumer spending than existing measures.

The Consumer Health Index is the first forward-looking signal of consumer spending that blends two proven inputs: unemployment trends, a leading indicator of household capacity to spend, and consumer sentiment, which captures real-time willingness to spend. Together, these measures provide a comprehensive view of demand strength.

• Why it’s different: Unlike government reports that lag by weeks, CHI is designed to track with benchmarks like Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) and Retail Sales but delivers the signal earlier, giving leaders a faster, more reliable read on demand.
• Why it matters now: In a cycle where economic conditions shift quickly and legacy measures face reliability concerns, CHI offers a sharper lens into consumer health. It enables financial leaders and policymakers to anticipate turns in spending and act with confidence.
• How leaders can use CHI: Business leaders can leverage the index to detect spending shifts before they show up in sales or government data, drill into key demographics and regions to understand where demand is strongest, and identify emerging risks to safeguard revenue.

“CHI is designed to take the guesswork out of tracking demand. By blending labor market dynamics with real-time sentiment, we’re giving executives and policymakers a tool that not only explains what’s happening now but helps anticipate what comes next,” says Kayla Bruun, Head of Economic Analysis, Morning Consult.

Key insights from today’s release:

• Consumer demand has been surprisingly resilient this year. The Consumer Health Index (CHI) has been steadily climbing so far in 2025 despite dips in sentiment tied to tariffs and policy uncertainty. Softer inflation and still-low unemployment have underpinned both a willingness and ability to keep spending.
• Recent CHI levels suggest solid spending growth in August. We are still a couple weeks away from seeing government spending data for last month, but our own August data signals demand will not have slowed. The Bureau of Economic Analysis' recent personal consumption expenditures report showed that real spending grew 4.7% year over year as of July, while the Census Bureau's data showed retail sales were up 3.9% that month. CHI, which was designed to approximately track annual real spending growth for these measures, had an average level of 4.5 in July.
• A slowdown in hiring could dampen demand starting in September. Since late spring of this year, CHI growth has primarily been driven by the employment component, while sentiment has remained mostly stable over the past few months. Changes in unemployment have a lagged influence on CHI trajectory, so accumulating joblessness from slow hiring may show up later this year.
• Demand is up among most demographic groups, particularly those from high-income households. CHI scores are broadly on the upswing over the past year, and higher income adults have benefited the most thanks in part to rising investment values they disproportionately benefit from. Additionally, labor churn is less prevalent among this group, and slow hiring is more likely to affect lower wage workers.

Click here to learn more about Morning Consult’s Consumer Health Index (CHI) and access the full results. 

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Methodology: The Consumer Health Index (CHI) is built from Morning Consult’s daily survey data, drawing on more than 5,000 U.S. interviews each day collected through a stratified sampling process to ensure national representativeness by age and gender. It combines the transformed components of employment and sentiment data that have shown the strongest historical correlation with annual spending growth: the personal current financial conditions index and the lagged change in average unemployment levels.

About Morning Consult: Morning Consult delivers the always-on consumer signal. Every day, we survey 30,000 people across 40+ countries, tracking behavior and sentiment in real time. From hidden growth opportunities to emerging reputation risks, we help leaders see around corners and act first. Learn more at morningconsult.com.

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