According to our index, more and more Americans are turning to apps to help them in times of financial need, or are using apps that would indicate they are not experiencing economic growth. As of the end of December 2019, we’re looking at 21.1 million monthly active users of apps in this index.
We wanted to put together an index of mobile apps that could provide insight into how Americans are doing financially - somewhat of an economic indicator if you will. Please note, this is certainly not a scientific/fool-proof look at how the American economy is doing.
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How is the index trending?
The index runs from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2019. During this time, average monthly DAUs have increased 136%, MAUs have increased 85%, and monthly net new installs (downloads) have increased 114%.
As of the end of December 2019, we’re looking at 6.3 million daily active users and 21.1 million monthly active users of apps in this index. More than six percent of the U.S. population figures into our MAU number. However, doing some rough scans of our User Graph, I see indication that many users of one app in this index are likely to also be users of another app in the index. If we look at net new installs for these apps in just 2019, that number reached 55.6 million. While not all of these installs became active users, this is a massive number of Americans who had enough motivation to download one of these apps and see if it could help them.
What is a recession? Can we tell when one is coming?
A recession is a contraction in the economy. It is officially defined as "a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced." There are plenty of indicators people use to try and identify when a recession may happen, but if they were fool-proof, we'd all be able to time the market and get rich. So no, these indicators are not great predictors of when a recession will come.
Some identify a recession by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters. Bankrate does a good job of outlining six indicators; yield curve, confidence indexes, employment data, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s recession probability model, the Lending Economic Index, gross domestic product.
Those in less than ideal financial circumstances or struggling with poverty are typically hit first as a recession comes into play. The apps we've included in our index are not apps that anyone with a strong financial situation would be downloading and using.
The apps behind the index
The idea behind gathering these specific apps is that, if they’re increasing in downloads and usage, it’s a sign that people are not doing well financially. There is no weighting to this index, each app is counted equally. We are not accounting for U.S. population growth or anything else, we’re just showing you the data. We tried to include apps that people in less than ideal financial situations are likely to download and use.
For example, one of the top apps in the index is Fresh EBT. It's an app that enables people to check their food stamp balance, get deposit reminders, track EBT spending, find “local, flexible jobs to earn extra income” and more. We also have two Medicaid apps, payday advance apps, etc. If more people need to borrow money in advance of their paychecks to get groceries, this is not a good sign.
Every inclusion and exclusion of an app can be argued over. For example, we initially had gig-worker apps in here such as Postmates and Instacart Shopper, but ended up going in another direction. I’ve also heard arguments for fast food apps to be in here, but in the end, we decided to exclude those as well.
Using Apptopia’s Market Explorer tool, you can (and should!) make your own market and we can compare notes. Still, we feel this does provide a level of insight for America and it’s absolutely an interesting index to look at.
Here is the list of all 30 apps in order of highest average U.S. daily active users (DAU) over the past two years:
- Earnin - Get paid today
- Dollar General
- Fresh EBT - Food Stamp Balance
- Dave - Banking For Humans
- Family Dollar
- Netspend
- My Boost
- Klarna | Smoooth Shopping
- Walmart MoneyCard
- Affirm: A better way to pay
- WICShopper
- Brigit: Get $250. When Needed.
- MyMetro
- CARD.com Mobile
- Afterpay - Shop Now, Pay Later
- myCricket
- PayPal Prepaid
- Ingo Money - Cash Checks Fast
- Bluebird by American Express
- Possible Finance Loans & Cash
- Tally - Pay Off Debt Faster
- PayActiv - Earned Wage Access
- Anthem Medicaid
- Aetna Better Health - Medicaid
- SoLo Funds: Lend and Borrow
- ChimpChange Mobile Banking
- Mint Mobile
- The ChangEd App
- Full Cart
- SWHELPER
