MUTORO: What low disposable income means for consumers

AS Kenyans head into yet another Christmas season, the mood across many households is not festive but anxious.

For a growing number of families, disposable income has shrunk to the point where Christmas spending is no longer about celebration, but survival. It actually means an ordinary day as they warm up to send their children to school.

Headline inflation figures may suggest stability, for political optics, but they mask a deeper reality: real incomes have continued to significantly decline.

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Wages have failed to keep pace with the rising cost of essentials — food, transport, electricity, rent and taxation.

The result is that households have little or nothing left after meeting basic needs. Yet the expenditure side keeps climbing North.

Compared to last year, this festive season feels more constrained. Consumer spending is visibly subdued, not because Kenyans have suddenly become frugal, but because purchasing power has been eroded.

Low demand, rather than improved affordability, explains the calmer inflation numbers. People are simply not spending because they cannot. They have no money. It’s not in circulation. Pending bills for contractors at national and county governments is one such disadvantage.

From a consumer protection perspective, this should concern policymakers. Christmas is traditionally a period of increased economic activity — travel, food consumption, retail trade and small-business earnings.

When households are forced to cut back, the ripple effects are felt across the entire economy, particularly among informal traders and small enterprises.

Cofek’s position is that economic success must be measured not only by macro-economic indicators, but by household welfare.

A festive season marked by anxiety and debt is a clear signal that economic policies are not translating into lived prosperity.

As the country reflects during this season, there is need for deliberate interventions to restore purchasing power: relief on essential goods, fair taxation, strict price monitoring and policies that put consumers at the centre of economic planning.

Without this, Christmas risks becoming a reminder of inequality rather than a celebration of dignity and hope.

It is sad that Christmas no longer means much for the majority of low-income and lower middle-class.

The writer is Consumer Federation of Kenya (Cofek) secretary general