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Middle Class Crisis
1. Middle Class Crisis
‘Squeezing’ tensions have long existed in middle class households but
these have always been relevant to the climate. Where tensions existed
they have been accompanied with continual strides towards
improvement. Now this ‘squeezing’ has turned to ‘strangling’ and
middle class households are beginning to witness a crisis.
2. Middle Class Crisis
Text
From To
Working
Working hard
Comfortable towards goals
hard to stay
afloat
3. Middle Class Crisis
Food Poverty Income drop
Income of household with children fell five times more than
200,000 children live below the poverty line childless households between 2009-2010. While the income of
the poorest household falls by 18%
(Source: Irish Independent 2012) (Source: Irish Times 2012/ Journal 2012)
Consumer Spending Back to school boost?
Consumer spending has reached it lowest The back to school boost often enjoyed by retailers did not
materialise this quarter
since 2005 (Source: Checkout 2012) (Source: Checkout 2012)
4. Back-to-school pressures
become insurmountable
80% of parents feel back to school costs are a burden
A poll by Bernardo’s
More than 115,000
The department of found that parents
families representing
Social Protection were paying €355 for a
over 200,000 children
received almost a child in senior infants
have been receiving
1,000 back-to-school and €770 for children
the payments
allowance requests going into first year in
automatically
secondary school
Source: MCCP Trendstream™ Irish Times 2012
5. 238% increase in jobless heads
of households
Households headed by the
unemployed rose from 15,000
in 2006 to 50,792 in 2011
An increase of 238%
Half of those households, no
one is employed
Source: MCCPTrendstream™/CSO 2012
6. Middle Class Crisis
Homes and household charges are a major source of stress
One in three people are concerned about losing their homes, whilst the
amount of people worrying about homelessness has doubled since 2012*
105,000 household 17,993 have While 6,400 are
non-payment letters registered for a awaiting resolution of
were distributed** waiver queries
The average annual cost of owning and
maintaining a home in Ireland , based
on todays house prices, is in the region
of €15,400, which equates to 43% of the
average current Irish annual wage which
stands at €35,765***
Source: MCCPTrendstream™/*Journal 2012/**Department of the Environment / ***AA Ireland 2012
7. Middle Class Crisis
Stress is somewhat relieved by back to education
The three main groups signing up for evening classes:
• Those who are still in the workforce who are seeking to upgrade their skills
• People who are out of the workforce but want to return to work
• People who are seeking a social outlet
The majority of those taking diploma courses are
female aged 35-44
The majority undertaking degrees or PGC’s tend to
be younger with 64% under 34, with it being split
evenly between males and females
An estimated 300,000 (that’s one in ten of the Irish
adult population participate in education every
year)
Source: MCCPTrendstream™/AONTAS 2012
9. Micro Luxuries
Christmas Release Online Luxuries
Irish consumers used 70,000 tonnes of packaging over the
Christmas period, an increase of 25% from last year, including 6 2.6 million Irish people spend €116 a month to
million roles of wrapping paper, 5 million boxes of chocolates secure value for money purchases (Source: Digital
and 20 million soft drink cans (Source: Repak 2012)
Hub Development Agency 2012)
Retail Therapy Tech
December retail sales were up in December 2012 for 71% of Irish consumers were predicted to have
the first time in 5 years (Source: Retail Excellence smartphones by the end of 2012 (Source: Tony
Ireland 2012) Keohane CEO Tesco 2012)
10. Micro Luxuries
So What?
Market in a way so that the consumer feels
no guilt over the purchase but still feels it
is an indulgence
Price is important but the premium nature
of the product will still influence
consumers’ decisions in this area. Brands
must focus on getting the value equation
right
Give consumers an affordable way to
experience your brand
A little and often is more relative in the
new normal
11. Micro Luxuries
We Expect…
Mini sized luxuries have been
popular for the last few years but it
We still find ways to enjoy ourselves seems like marketers have caught up
and so while we continue to spend with consumers and are giving more
more than average at Christmas ‘fun’ sized options than before. The
than our European counterparts, anticipation of the event is half the
we’ve planned every element and fun and 2013 is a year that we will
are keeping an eye on the scale of be planning in advance so as to
our activities guarantee that our schedule is
peppered with positive landmarks
