Forget millennials - these 2 groups are the real future of America's consumers
Everyone keeps talking about millennials and their shopping habits.
But that doesn't mean they're going to be the only influential consumers in America's near-term future.
A Morgan Stanley team led by Paula Campbell Roberts argues two other demographic groups will also be key drivers of future consumption trends in the US: Hispanics of all ages and whites over the age of 65.The team writes that in the next five years, the proportion of Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino will increase by a "whopping" 1.6 percentage points, and that of people over 65 will increase by 0.9 ppt. Meanwhile, millennials' share of the population will increase by only 0.6 ppt. Moreover, 52% of the US' population growth will be driven by the Hispanic population.
"The result will be wallet share growth for the white over 65 and Hispanic populations in the coming years," the Morgan Stanley team argued, which you can see in their chart below.
Notably, we should mention that the Hispanic population is quite young, and a large percentage of millennials in the US are Hispanic. In fact, according to data from the Census Bureau's 2014 American Community Survey, about 21% of adults between 18 and 34 years old identified as Hispanic or Latino - so there is a sizeable overlap between millennials and Hispanics.
The biggest shifts in wallet share within the Hispanic group will be for middle-aged people in the 55-64 and 45-54 age brackets, according to Morgan Stanley's estimates. Although whites over 65 will see the biggest gain in wallet share in the coming years, whites aged 45-54 will see the biggest drop.
Check out the full chart below.
Morgan Stanley