Honors Thesis Defense: Samuel Kuehner

“Pandemics and Poverty: Lessons on Consumer Behavior from COVID-19.” During the COVID-19 pandemic consumer spending fell dramatically following the initial shutdown of the economy. This thesis models the impact of consumer income level on consumer spending to determine whether income of the consumer has a significant impact on an individual’s marginal propensity to consume. The findings showed that consumers in the lowest income group had a proportionally smaller drop in their overall spending when compared to all
other income groups.