The decline in spending on travel, entertainment, and the like is temporary, so the “nothing else to spend it on” effect has already diminished and will disappear entirely.
I disagree that we’ll ever get back to pre-COVID levels on a lot of these issues.
I think these broad “fun outside the home” areas that ranges from trips to France to Applebees, will never recover.
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Never recover? My math might be bad, but I think Never sounds like a very long time. Never?
In my own experience, and that of my family and social circles, there has been and is an enormous pent-up demand for travel and any variety of outside the home activities. People want to get back to a pre-pandemic lifestyle. A lifestyle comprised of work from home all day, school from home, cook at home every meal, work out at home, movies at home, Zoom calls from home to relatives instead of travel, etc etc etc is not what people desire. At least not the people I know.
So I would disagree, I think we will see a recovery over the coming years.