In early 2007, when the last edition of Packaged Facts The Affluent Consumer Market in the U.S. was published, affluent consumers in America as well as wealthy individuals around the globe were going about their business of making, borrowing and spending money in blissful ignorance of the perfect financial storm that lay ahead. At the time, it was unimaginable that the housing bubble would deflate and leave behind a wreckage of foreclosures and worthless subprime mortgage securities. It was unthinkable that the stock market would collapse, financial markets would come close to imploding and a storied institution such as Lehman Brothers would simply disappear from the Wall Street landscape. Practically no one could foresee the onset of the most severe recession in more than 70 years.

The 2009 edition of Packaged Facts The Affluent Consumer Market in the U.S. provides a timely, in-depth analysis of how affluent consumers are responding to the most profound economic crisis since the Great Depression. The report uses multi-year data from Experian Simmons National Consumer Studies to track affluent consumer attitudes and behavior from the years preceding the onset of the Great Recession into 2009. This trend analysis gives marketers an insightful, up-to-date view of what’s changed and what’s stayed the same in the psyche and behavior of affluent consumers, who account for 22% of the nation’s households but still generate more than half of the household income of the country and remain responsible for more than one-third of all consumer spending.

This Packaged Facts report begins with an assessment of the strategic trends shaping the affluent consumer market today, including a data-driven analysis of how affluent consumers are coping—or not—with the Great Recession. The next chapter describes how marketers are adapting to change in the affluent consumer market and highlights key opportunities in what remains the single most attractive market segment in the American consumer economy. Following a chapter that includes an in-depth demographic profile of affluent consumers, the report assesses the size of the affluent market today and projects its growth through 2014.

The second section of the report examines how affluent consumers manage and spend money. It includes a chapter offering insights into changes in the attitudes of financial consumers toward risk and includes an analysis of credit card use and ownership of insurance policies and investments. The next chapter explores affluent consumer spending and shopping patterns. It includes a trend analysis of affluent consumer expenditures from 2005 through 2008 that demonstrates where affluent consumers are cutting back and in some cases adding to their household budgets. It also provides an overview of the behavior of affluent shoppers—in stores, online and from catalogs.

The third section of the report includes separate chapters highlighting key aspects of affluent consumer behavior. These include chapters on health and well-being, affluent consumers and their homes and cars, how affluent consumers spend leisure time and affluent consumers and the media.