What makes Americans start preparing?
68%
68% of US adults say inflation and the cost of living made them more likely to prepare.
n = 6,071 US adults · Fielded 2026 · Cherry Data Signals
Breakdown
Inflation and cost of living68%
Extreme weather57%
Cybercrime52%
Job loss49%
Artificial intelligence44%
Power or grid failure43%
Political instability41%
Pandemics38%
Civil unrest29%
0%50%100%
Multiple selections allowed; figures do not sum to 100.
What it means
Economic pressure outranks every physical threat. Artificial intelligence, at 44%, now outranks pandemics.
Methodology
- Sample
- 6,071
- Population
- US adults
- Country
- United States
- Fielded
- 2026
- Research by
- Cherry Data Signals
- Study
- The new prepper economy
Cite this statistic
Cherry Data Signals (2026). "What makes Americans start preparing?" Survey of 6,071 US adults, United States. https://cherrysignals.com/statistics/what-makes-americans-start-preparing
Free to reproduce with attribution to Cherry Data Signals and a link to this page.
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