One of the biggest questions facing Wall Street is how much powder households have been able to keep dry to fuel future purchases, and according to the latest Household Pulse study published by JPMorgan using anonymized data from roughly 9 million Chase customers, the median bank balance across all income groups still remained between 10% and 15% higher at the end of the first quarter of 2023 than at the end of 2019.

This cushion is, however, the thinnest observed since the pandemic first spread worldwide in April of the following year.

Chris Wheat, President of the JPMorgan Chase Institute and lead author of the study, also included an analysis based on race and ethnicity for the first time in the series of studies.

Data suggested that Black and Hispanic households—consistently poorer compared to their white and Asian peers—are burning through their reserves faster.

“By the end of March 2023, balances for both groups were below $3,000, approaching their respective pre-pandemic levels,” the author wrote. 

Delinquency rates on the rise as lending conditions tighten

The overall data might help explain why economists have been consistently confounded by just how robust the economy remains long after an impending 2023 recession first became a consensus view. 

Nevertheless, Deutsche Bank remains convinced it’s just a matter of time before U.S. consumers will run out of fuel to stoke the economic fires.

It recently predicted the country remains on track for activity to contract starting in the fourth quarter.

Despite the continued strong labor market and cooling inflation, there are some worrying signs that the most vulnerable consumers are struggling to ensure ends meet as lending conditions deteriorate.

According to a new Federal Reserve survey, the overall rejection rate for Americans applying for some form of credit—whether it’s a mortgage, new car loan, or a credit card—increased to 21.8%, the highest level since June 2018. 

Last week Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok warned that delinquency rates were rising on everything from auto loans and credit cards to high-yield corporate debt as the effects of the Fed’s tightening cycle slowly ripple across the $26 trillion U.S. economy.

“Across the board, both for consumers and for corporates, the conclusion is a default cycle has started,” Slok told Bloomberg TV last week. “So it is biting, it’s just not showing up at the macro level quite yet.”