In just one short news cycle, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has become the top stressor in America, a new WalletHub survey finds.
For many years the top stressor for Americans was money, but now the coronavirus pandemic has quickly taken that spot.
The WalletHub survey found that 28% of Americans consider the coronavirus to be their top stressor, 26% still find money problems to be their largest stressor, and 18% are most concerned about the 2020 election.
Additionally, the survey found that 67 million Americans are anticipating being unable to pay their credit card bills due to the financial consequences of COVID-19, 76% of those surveyed believe credit card companies should forgive late payments if the people making the payments have been affected financially by the virus.
While many Americans are panic buying supplies to stock up for a possible quarantine, the majority of American adults are now trying to save more rather than spend more, according to the survey.
“We’ve seen a lot of panic buying as a result of the coronavirus, with people purchasing things like toilet paper en masse, largely because they don’t know what else to do,” WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez told the Deseret News. “Less apparent, however, is the panic saving that people are engaged in right now. Around 158 million Americans, or roughly 63% of adults, say they are saving more, as opposed to buying more, as a result of this crisis. If there’s a bright side to all of this, people saving more money than usual might just be it.”
The survey data comes from an online survey of more than 500 Americans conducted between March 9 and 12 that has been normalized to reflect the overall demographics of the United States.