Americans grew more worried about keeping their jobs last month, even as the official numbers said hiring was strong. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released its October Survey of Consumer Expectations on Monday, November 9, and found that households' expectation that the jobless rate will be higher a year from now rose to its highest level since April 2020 — the reading last hit during the tumultuous early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported.
The survey, conducted over the course of October, points in two directions at once. Respondents said they saw a greater chance of involuntarily losing a job, although that expectation was still at relatively low levels. At the same time, they also said their chance of finding new work after a job loss was higher in October than it had been in September. It is the picture Fed officials themselves often describe as a low-hire, low-fire labour market: few people are being let go, but anyone who is let go knows the next job may not come quickly.
Inflation expectations stayed stuck above target
The part of the survey the Federal Reserve watches most closely barely moved — and that is the problem. Respondents see inflation a year from now at 3.9%, three years from now at 3.3% and five years from now at 3.0%, all levels that matched the September survey and all well above the Fed's 2% inflation target. Expectations across a range of commodities were mixed, with households seeing a more moderate increase in gasoline prices a year from now than they saw in September.
Why does a survey of feelings matter to a central bank? Because expectations can become self-fulfilling: workers who expect 3.9% inflation demand bigger raises, and businesses that expect the same build it into prices. A central bank whose 2% target stops being believed has to work much harder — usually with higher interest rates for longer — to bring actual inflation down.
The debt-payment warning underneath the headline
The sharpest move in the October survey was not about jobs at all. The average perceived probability of missing a minimum debt payment over the next three months climbed by 1.6 percentage points to 13.8%, its highest level since December 2025. Earnings growth expectations for the year ahead held at 2.6%, just below the 12-month trailing average of 2.7%. Median expected household income growth ticked down 0.1 point to 3.0%, inside the 2.8% to 3.1% range seen since June 2025, and spending growth expectations slipped 0.2 point to 5.3%, still above the 12-month trailing average of 5.0%. Households' view of their current financial situation improved a bit compared with September, expectations for finances a year from now were steady, and readings on access to credit, now and in the future, were unchanged.
A strong jobs report points the other way
The worry in the survey sits oddly beside the hard data released three days earlier. On Friday, the government reported the job market showed unexpected strength in October, with a gain of 165,000 jobs and the jobless rate ebbing to 4.1%, amid strong upward revisions to recent hiring data — roughly three times the roughly 63,000 gain economists had expected, with the previous two months revised higher by about 80,000 in total, according to market coverage of the report. The survey itself was conducted through October, in the run-up to midterm elections that ultimately produced broad Democratic gains, including control of both houses of Congress, and Reuters noted voters went to the polls in a sour national mood after struggling with high inflation linked to President Donald Trump's trade tariffs and the Middle East war.
The next test arrives Tuesday, November 10, when the October Consumer Price Index is released; market previews put the consensus at 3.9% from a year earlier, up from 3.7% in September, with producer prices following on Friday and New York Fed President John Williams scheduled to speak Thursday. Reuters reported Fed officials are broadly expected to raise interest rates at the early-December policy meeting as they work to bring inflation back to target, and futures markets have priced roughly a 70% chance of a quarter-point increase at the December 9 meeting.
What this means for Punjabi households and truckers in the US
For this site's readers — Punjabi families across California, New York, New Jersey, Texas and the trucking corridors in between — the survey's mixed signals translate into very practical questions. A 13.8% average chance of missing a minimum debt payment is a warning about credit cards and truck loans alike, at a moment when borrowing costs are expected to stay high or rise again in December. Households expecting 3.9% inflation but only 3.0% income growth are, on their own numbers, expecting to fall behind. The one piece of relief in the data is fuel: households expect more moderate gasoline price increases than they did in September, though diesel costs for owner-operators follow their own market and are not broken out in this survey.
What happens next
Tuesday's inflation report will show whether consumers' 3.9% expectation is becoming reality; if it does, a December rate increase becomes harder for the Fed to avoid, and mortgage, auto and equipment-loan rates will stay punishing into the new year. The November Survey of Consumer Expectations, due next month, will show whether the post-election mood — and Friday's strong jobs numbers — lifted households' confidence, or whether the fear of higher unemployment a year from now, at its highest since the first pandemic spring, proves to be the signal that mattered.