The Shinesty Underwear Index: Unpacking America's Economic Confidence in 2025 & Beyond

Introduction

In the early 2000s, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan popularized an unlikely economic indicator: men's underwear sales. Dubbed the “Underwear Index,” the idea was simple—during times of financial strain, men tend to delay purchasing new underwear, making dips in sales a subtle but telling sign of broader economic downturns.

While unconventional, this theory has proven remarkably prescient across past recessions. In this report, Shinesty revives and modernizes that concept with a data-driven look at underwear consumption trends across the United States.

By analyzing internal sales data, consumer behavior patterns, and national search trends over the past year, we've constructed the Shinesty Underwear Index—a composite snapshot of the nation's economic pulse.

Our goal: to reveal which U.S. cities are riding high on economic momentum — and which ones might be tightening more than just their belts.

Summary of Key Findings

• Greenspan's Theory Holds Up: Men's underwear consumption continues to act as a reliable proxy for economic confidence—just as Alan Greenspan suggested. When confidence dips, so does underwear spending.
• Google Search Trends Closely Mirror National Sentiment: From 2020 to 2025, Google search interest in "men's underwear" moved in lockstep with the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, validating the relevance of search behavior as an economic signal.
• Spending Behavior Tells an Even Stronger Story: Shinesty's proprietary sales data not only mirrors national sentiment but often leads it—indicating consumer wallets tighten before survey responses catch up.
• City-Level Index Reveals Uneven Recovery: While some U.S. cities are confidently investing in underwear upgrades, others are scaling back dramatically—highlighting the geographic divide in post-pandemic economic resilience.
• Top-Performing Cities Show Strong Consumer Confidence: Cities like Waco, TX; San Francisco, CA; and Roanoke, VA lead the pack with high scores across order size, price per pair, and regional search interest—suggesting robust local economies and discretionary comfort.
• Struggling Cities Show Signs of Financial Strain: Cities like Norfolk, VA; Fort Myers, FL; and Wichita, KS land at the bottom of the index, where shrinking order sizes and minimal search interest reflect tightening budgets and economic anxiety.
• Regional Trends Tell a Bigger Story: Texas, Utah, and parts of the Mountain West show strong consumer activity, while the Southeast, Midwest, and Rust Belt signal greater financial caution.
• The Underwear Index May Be Predictive, Not Just Reflective: In multiple instances, declines in Shinesty's index preceded national drops in consumer sentiment—suggesting this unique data set may serve as an early warning system for economic shifts.
• It's Not Just a Gimmick: The combination of intent (search behavior) and action (purchasing patterns) positions the Shinesty Underwear Index as a legitimate, behavior-based tool for understanding real economic confidence.
• Full 100-City Rankings Provide Actionable Local Insights: The complete city index offers a high-resolution look at which local economies are spending with confidence—and which are pulling back.

The Data

To modernize Alan Greenspan's original underwear index and assess its relevance in today's economy, this report draws from three key data sources spanning five years (2020–2025). Together, these sources form the foundation of the Shinesty Underwear Index, designed to track national economic sentiment and spotlight localized city-level shifts.

Economic Alignment: Search Behavior and Consumer Sentiment Move in Sync

To evaluate the legitimacy of Greenspan's theory in today's economy, we began by examining how search interest for “men's underwear” correlates with overall consumer confidence.

The chart below tracks Google Trends data (red line) for “men's underwear” alongside the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (blue line) from 2020 to 2025.

As the data reveals, interest in men's underwear shows a strong positive correlation with consumer sentiment over time, consistently dipping during periods of economic uncertainty or downturn. Notably, recurring November and December spikes in search interest appear tied to seasonal holiday shopping patterns, rather than shifts in economic confidence, and should be interpreted accordingly.

From the early pandemic recovery in 2021 to inflationary pressures in 2022 and recessionary fears in late 2024, search interest for underwear closely mirrors the emotional state of the American consumer.

This relationship offers compelling evidence that the underwear index still holds predictive power—and that it may serve as an overlooked, but timely, signal of where consumer confidence is headed. Whether Americans are feeling flush or financially frayed, their underwear habits may be one of the clearest indicators.

These parallel trends between Google search behavior and consumer sentiment confirm that interest in men's underwear is more than just a novelty metric—it's a reliable proxy for economic confidence. But while search volume reflects intent, the true economic signal may lie in behavior.

That's where Shinesty's proprietary Underwear Index steps in—capturing how much people are actually spending, how frequently they're ordering, and whether those actions align with the sentiment data we've seen so far.

In the next section, we'll compare Shinesty's consumer behavior data directly to the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index to explore how spending on underwear reveals the financial realities Americans are living through—city by city, waistband by waistband.

Behavior Meets Belief: The Shinesty Underwear Index Mirrors National Mood

When it comes to understanding the economy, what consumers say and what they do don't always align. That's why the Shinesty Underwear Index is such a powerful complement to traditional indicators like the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index.

While consumer sentiment surveys capture how Americans feel about the economy, Shinesty's data captures how those feelings translate into behavior—particularly through the lens of an often-overlooked yet telling purchase: men's underwear.

The chart below tracks Shinesty's Underwear Index (in red) and the UMich Sentiment Index (in black) across a five-year period from 2020 to 2025. The Shinesty Index is calculated using a blend of average price per pair, total order value, and Google search interest—all of which serve as signals of confidence in discretionary spending.

Notably, these are not hypothetical intentions or survey responses; they are the sum of real-world consumer decisions across millions of transactions.

What we see is a striking correlation. Both indices begin the decade with strength amid post-lockdown optimism. But by late 2021, the cracks begin to show. As inflation takes hold and economic uncertainty rises, the Shinesty Index dips—first subtly, then sharply—mirroring a corresponding downturn in national sentiment.

Across 2022 and 2023, the Shinesty Index stabilizes briefly before entering a longer period of decline, falling even faster than the sentiment index at times. This suggests that consumers often act anxious before they admit they are—tightening their wallets, downsizing orders, and opting for lower-cost essentials well before that worry shows up in surveys.

One particularly telling insight is how often the Shinesty Index leads changes in the UMich data. In early 2024, for instance, we observed a clear drop in the average order value and price per pair—well ahead of the UMich index's downturn months later. These inflection points may indicate that men's underwear spending is not just reflective of the economy but may be an early warning signal of economic shifts still to come.

Ultimately, this alignment between hard consumer data and national sentiment gives us confidence that the Shinesty Underwear Index is more than a cheeky homage to Alan Greenspan—it's a legitimate lens into consumer confidence and spending behavior. And while national trends are telling, the real insight may come from looking beneath the surface at the city level, where economic highs and lows take on even sharper contrasts.

The national alignment between the Shinesty Underwear Index and consumer sentiment paints a clear picture: underwear spending is a meaningful barometer of economic confidence. But economic behavior doesn't manifest evenly across the map.

Some cities are thriving—placing larger orders, opting for premium pairs, and searching for underwear like it's a necessity again. Others are pulling back, signaling more acute financial pressure at the local level.

To understand where confidence is holding strong, we turn now to the top 20 best-performing cities on the Shinesty Underwear Index—places where spending resilience, search intent, and consumer behavior suggest a local economy still dressed for success.

Mapping Prosperity: The 20 Strongest Local Economies by Underwear Index

While national trends tell us the direction of the economy, local data reveals where people are still spending with confidence. The Shinesty Underwear Index, built from actual purchase behavior, average order size, price per pair, and regional search interest, allows us to zoom in and identify the cities where economic optimism—and perhaps a little swagger—is still alive and well.

The map below highlights the top 20 cities in America with the strongest underwear index scores between 2023 and 2025. These aren't just places buying more underwear—they're cities where consumer behavior signals resilience: bigger orders, higher-value items, and elevated search activity. In other words, these communities aren't just getting dressed—they're gearing up.

This top 20 list isn't just about fashion—it's about financial fortitude. These cities exemplify localized economic strength, where confidence in the wallet shows up in the underwear drawer. Whether driven by job growth, population gains, or simply a refusal to settle for saggy boxers, these metros represent the most economically optimistic corners of the country.

Next, let's take a look at cities that are heading in the opposite direction.

Mapping Decline: The 20 Weakest Local Economies by Underwear Index

Where the strongest cities in our index reflect consumer confidence and resilience, the lowest-scoring metros tell a different story—one of restraint, uncertainty, and shrinking spending power. The bottom 20 cities in the Shinesty Underwear Index reveal where economic anxiety may be hitting hardest, with consumers pulling back on discretionary purchases, opting for cheaper options, or skipping underwear refreshes altogether.

Based on Shinesty's proprietary blend of price per pair, order size, and regional search interest, the cities listed below exhibited the lowest composite scores from 2023 to 2025—signaling potential stress on local economies and households.

These results may not just reflect declining consumer confidence—they could foreshadow deeper economic challenges taking shape in these local markets. From shrinking average order values to decreased online interest, the Shinesty Underwear Index is sounding the alarm: in these cities, economic strain may already be tightening its grip.

Conclusion: A Nation's Outlook, Told Through Its Underwear Drawer

When Alan Greenspan first floated the idea that men's underwear sales could predict economic downturns, it sounded like an offhand curiosity.

But as this report has shown, the theory holds up—especially when examined with modern tools, deeper data, and regional granularity.

The Shinesty Underwear Index, grounded in real-time consumer behavior and paired with traditional economic sentiment metrics, reveals a clear pattern: as confidence wanes, so does spending on essentials—even the ones no one sees.

Over the past five years (2020–2025), we've seen that:

• Google searches for “men's underwear” closely track national consumer sentiment, declining during periods of economic anxiety and rising during rebounds.
• Shinesty's own purchasing data—order size and price per pair —mirrors and often precedes drops in the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, suggesting underwear buying behavior may be an early signal of larger economic shifts.
• At the city level, we identified clear winners and strugglers. Places like Waco, San Francisco, and Roanoke are still spending with confidence, while cities such as Norfolk, Fort Myers, and Wichita show signs of economic tightening.
• Regional themes emerged—the Southwest and Intermountain West continue to punch above their weight, while parts of the Southeast and Rust Belt reflect more cautious consumer patterns.

In other words, the data between the seams is revealing. Underwear isn't just a purchase—it's a proxy for confidence, cash flow, and consumer stability. When people feel secure, they upgrade their basics. When they don't, they delay even the most personal essentials.

The implications extend beyond the novelty of the metric. For economists, marketers, and policymakers, this index offers a uniquely human lens into financial behavior—grounded in intent, reflected in action, and tied directly to individual purchasing decisions.

For the media and public, it's a reminder that the economy isn't just GDP and job reports. It's also made up of millions of micro-decisions that start in homes, play out in carts, and—yes—end up in underwear drawers.

As we continue to monitor consumer behavior into 2026 and beyond, the Shinesty Underwear Index will remain a cheeky yet surprisingly accurate reflection of economic reality. Because sometimes, the best way to measure confidence … is to check what's going on underneath it all.

The Underwear Economy: How 100 U.S. Cities Stack Up Below the Belt

The complete rankings of all 100 U.S. metropolitan areas analyzed in the Shinesty Underwear Index. Cities are ranked by their composite score, which combines average price per pair, total order value, and regional search interest for men's underwear. Higher scores indicate stronger economic confidence and consumer spending power.