People have the least amount of money on hand since the start of the pandemic

• During the pandemic, Americans' cash balances grew as the government handed out stimulus checks.
• But those pandemic gains are long gone, and inflation has eaten away at Americans' bank accounts.
• That might be why Americans feel so dreary about the economy, even with a hot labor market.

If you feel like your bank account has been dwindling, you're not alone. 

The latest data out of the JP Morgan Chase Institute looks at the cash balances — which includes both checking and savings accounts — of around nine million Chase customers, and how those balances have fluctuated throughout the pandemic and economic recovery. 

And, while the pandemic and subsequent government stimulus brought a major boost to household finances, with many Americans actually finding themselves better off financially, that boon seems to be coming to an end: In March, balances reached their lowest levels since April 2020, according to the report. 

That might be part of the reason that Americans feel so dreary about the economy, even as the latest data shows the signs of a booming labor market. Indeed, relative to 2019 levels, cash balances are still higher across the board. But they're still far from early pandemic highs, and still getting eaten up by high prices. 

The plunge in cash balances relative to 2019 began towards the middle of 2022, and continued throughout the start of the year, following an initial decline in 2021 as the economy began to reopen and Americans started to spend. That plunge also corresponds with inflation reaching its highest level since November 1981, reaching 9.1% year-over-year in June 2022.

For the lowest earning Americans — those in the bottom 25% of income — that plunge has meant going from a household balance high of around $2,000 in April 2021 to around $1,300 by the end of March 2023. The highest earners now have around $9,000 in their balances, a far cry from almost $12,000 in the spring of 2021.

Cash boosts from the government were disproportionately important for Black and Hispanic workers, according to the report, and both groups saw a significant boost in their balances relative to 2019 every time the government distributed a round of relief. Those gains were short-lived, and, despite balances for Black and Hispanic Americans skyrocketing initially, they're now in the same boat as white Americans and Asian Americans. At the same time, Black and Hispanic workers are still facing higher unemployment rates than their white peers.

Taken together, that household cash balance data gets at one of the bigger issues underlying how Americans feel about and are interacting with the economy: They're technically faring better than they were pre-pandemic, but with less purchasing power than they held at the height of the government's interventions. Even as wages grew in the wake of stimulus checks, those gains were often no match for increasing prices. 

Now, the economy is headed into a new iteration of normal, with balances elevated relative to pre-pandemic conditions and inflation coming down. But after the boom and bust cycle of the pandemic, where desperate conditions were met with influxes of cash, Americans seem to be displeased with the new status quo of the labor market — and their bank balances.