Earlier this spring, consumers were feeling good about their summer vacation prospects. More people were planning to take a trip compared to last year, and summer travel budgets were up, too, according to a new report from Deloitte.

But just a few weeks later — after President Donald Trump announced widescale tariffs and the stock market dropped precipitously, bubbling up recession fears — some would-be vacationers abruptly scaled back their spending plans, a second round of the survey found.

About 53% of respondents plan to take leisure vacations this summer, up from 48% in 2024, according to a new report by Deloitte. 

The report is based on two surveys: one was conducted between March 26 and April 1, 2025, and another between April 7 and April 9. The first survey reached 1,794 travelers and 2,132 non-travelers while the second reached 1,064 travelers and 880 non-travelers.

Initially, Deloitte found, the average summer travel budget was set to grow 21% year over year, to $4,967. In the second round of the survey, travelers expected to spend just 13% more than last year, or about $4,606.

When looking at budgets for their longest trip of the season, respondents initially planned to spend an average $3,987, 13% more than 2024. That anticipated budget declined to $3,471 in the second poll, an increase of less than 1% from a year ago. 

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Deloitte conducted a second poll because the firm noticed “softness” in consumer spending across other areas of their research, said Kate Ferrara, the transportation, hospitality and services sector leader at Deloitte.

“We still see a strong summer travel season, but perhaps with a more frugal approach,” said Ferrara.

Broadly, travel costs have declined, which may help travelers looking to stretch their budget. Hotel room rates are down 2.4% from a year ago, according to a recent report by NerdWallet. Rental car costs are also down 2.1% in that same timeframe, while airfares are down 7.9%.

Round-trip domestic airfare for this summer is averaging $265 per ticket, according to the 2025 summer outlook by Hopper, a travel site. That’s down 3% from $274 in 2024 and down 8% since 2019, the lowest level in three years.

Travel costs for international travel are generally down, said Hayley Berg, the lead economist at Hopper. The average round-trip airfare between the U.S. and Europe, the most popular international destination, costs $850 per ticket this summer, down 8% from 2024, Hopper found.

In spite of slightly lower prices for travel, people are generally spending more due to inflation, and might have less leftover money to spend on non-essential items like travel, said Deloitte’s Ferrara.

Denmark has moved to increase its retirement age to 70 — making it the highest retirement age in Europe.

Yet it may be difficult for the U.S. to follow its lead.

The new change in Denmark will apply to public pension retirements starting in 2040. Since 2006, the country has been adjusting its retirement age to reflect changes in life expectancy.

The U.S. does not technically have an official retirement age. At age 65, individuals become eligible for Medicare coverage. At age 66 to 67, depending on date of birth, an individual becomes eligible for full Social Security benefits based on their earnings record.

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However, those individuals who wait until age 70 to claim Social Security retirement benefits stand to get the biggest payout — an increase of 8% for each year beyond full retirement age. (The full retirement age is when beneficiaries are eligible for 100% of the benefits they’ve earned based on their work records.)

Yet few people wait until age 70 to claim benefits. While more than 90% of individuals would benefit from delaying Social Security until that age, only about 10% actually do, according to a 2023 paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

While age 70 is not the official U.S. retirement age, it is the threshold based on economists’ definition — the age at which you can’t accrue any more benefits, according to Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist and professor at The New School for Social Research.

“In the United States, it’s been 70 for decades, and we had the highest retirement age than any other country for years,” Ghilarducci said.

In 1983, Congress passed legislation to gradually raise the full retirement age for Social Security from 65 to 67. That change is still getting phased in today, with people born in 1960 and later subject to the higher 67 retirement age.

In December, an amendment to raise the full retirement age to 70 was introduced by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., during last-minute efforts to advance legislation that increased Social Security benefits for certain public pensioners.

The bill, the Social Security Fairness Act, was voted into law. However, the proposal to raise the retirement age was struck down.

Paul called for raising the retirement age by three months per year until it reached age 70, to reflect current life expectancies. The change would have created nearly $400 billion in savings for the program, while the Social Security Fairness Act added $200 billion in costs to the program over 10 years.

Other Republican proposals have likewise called for raising the retirement age.

The Social Security Administration faces looming depletion dates for the trust funds it relies on to help pay benefits. To help resolve that issue, lawmakers may consider raising taxes, cutting benefits or a combination of both. Raising the retirement age is effectively a benefit cut.

Like the changes enacted in 1983, raising the retirement age could be on the menu.

In 2023, research published by the Danish Center for Social Science Research found increasing good health and educational resources for 60- to 70-year-olds, along with higher demand for older workers, could point to retirement age increases in the future.

In 2025, Denmark residents can retire with public pensions when they are 67. That will gradually increase to age 70 as of 2040.

“That means simply that younger people today will have to work longer before they can go on retirement,” said Jesper Rangvid, professor of finance at the Copenhagen Business School and co-director of its Pension Research Centre.

That retirement age affects everybody entitled to basic public pension income, according to Rangvid. However, those with private pension savings may retire earlier.

“There’s nothing that prevents you from retiring earlier if you have the funds and the means to do so,” Rangvid said.

Denmark does offer options for early retirement, including an early pension. However, raising the retirement age conveys a message, Rangvid said.

“It sends a signal that this is what the positions would like, that you should work longer,” Rangvid said.

In contrast, the U.S. faces high national debt that requires the country to spend more on interest payments than on the military.

Budget legislation that is currently under consideration in Congress could add an estimated $3.3 trillion to the debt including interest, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

That package would not touch Social Security or its retirement age. However, other proposals have suggested that change, a benefit cut that would be a “pretty powerful lever” toward helping to resolve the program’s funding issues, according to Munnell.

One proposal scored by the Social Security Administration’s actuaries found raising the full retirement age to 70 would eliminate 26% of the program’s 75-year shortfall.

America’s fertility rate is hovering around historic lows, with approximately 1.6 births per woman over her lifetime. This is below the level needed to sustain the population, which is 2.1 births per woman.

“Our population will, in the not too distant future, start to decline,” said Melissa Kearney, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland. “That’s why this is an issue for governments and for the economy, and politicians are starting to pay attention.”

The economic implications of a shrinking population are broad. For example, fewer births mean fewer future workers to support programs like Social Security and Medicare, which rely on a healthy worker-to-retiree ratio.

“The concern here in the U.S. is that if we see kind of dramatic declines in fertility, we will eventually see also kind of a drag on our economy and our capacity to cover all sorts of government programs like Medicare and Social Security,” said Brad Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia and director of the Get Married Initiative at the Institute For Family Studies.

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Lawmakers from both parties have proposed various financial incentives to address declining fertility.

The White House is considering lump-sum payments of $5,000 for each newborn, according to The New York Times. Last week, the House passed a massive tax and spending package that includes among other provisions, a bigger child tax credit and new “Trump Accounts” with $1,000 in seed money for newborns.

However, Kearney said such policy measures are unlikely to meaningfully affect long-term fertility trends.

“I think the kinds of financial incentives or benefits that we’re providing just really aren’t enough to really change the calculus of, a trade off of … bringing a child into one’s household or family,” Kearney said. “That’s an 18-year commitment. It’s not just a one-year cost.”

Watch the video above to learn more about why government efforts to raise America’s birthrate have struggled to address the deeper economic and cultural challenges.