For the three-year anniversary of the Wealth and Wellbeing Research Programme, we have launched the LV= Wellness Tracker.
This new metric gives a consolidated measure of how we are coping financially as a nation. Currently the tracker is at +17. This is calculated by taking the percentage of consumers who would describe their financial situation as ‘struggling’ away from the percentage of those who described their situation as ‘comfortable’.
Our latest LV= Wellness Tracker figure suggests that the nation’s financial resilience is lower now than during the pandemic. While a positive figure does mean that more people are comfortable than struggling overall, it is a concern that over 40% of respondents have been finding it hard to get by since December of last year.
We saw a marked Wellness decline as we entered 2022. The Tracker dropped by 12 points by March 2022 and three quarters later dropped again in December 2022 to hit our all-time low of 15, where we stayed for two consecutive quarters.
There is a glimmer of hope as the latest figure increased by +2 indicating that UK consumer finances improved slightly in the run up to summer 2023. However, the most recent result (17) is much lower than this time last year (29) or this time two years ago (45). This reflects that many people are struggling, and they’ve been under strain for a significant period.
The LV= Wellness Tracker clearly demonstrates the effect of UK economic events on ordinary people and will provide a reliable quarterly financial temperature into the future.
In Edition 13 of the Wealth and Wellbeing Research Programme, we asked respondents to reflect on the challenges they experienced and how their priorities changed over the last three years.
