Despite this, the participants' overall outlook on the economy has been increasingly gloomy:

• 3.2% of the survey respondents believe that U.S. economic conditions will get “better” over the next six months, a decrease from 7.7% in January
• 54.8% indicate they believe the U.S. economy will “stay the same” over the next six months, a decrease from 57.7% last month
• 41.9% believe economic conditions in the U.S. will worsen over the next six months, an increase from 34.6% the previous month.

Against this backdrop, the trends in past due AR and bad debt charge-offs have been mixed:

• Receivables over 30 days past due were 1.8 percent of total AR in December 2022, up from 1.7 percent in November but down from 2.0 percent in November 2021
• Charge-offs were 0.26 percent of sales in December 2022, down from 0.27 percent in November and up from 0.25 percent in November 2021.
• Against our current very fluid and dynamic economy, prudent credit executives will closely monitor the industries in which they participate.