Americans don’t seem very confident in the country’s economic fortunes the last few months.
In its latest survey, the Conference Board noted that consumer confidence dropped 7.2 points this month. It’s 92.9 reading is the lowest level since January 2021 and continues a decline that started in December.
March’s decline was similar to the drop felt in February, underscoring the growing pessimism among U.S. consumers, according to a report from CNN.
The survey from the Conference Board, a global, nonprofit think tank and business membership organization, two thoughts are shared by consumers: They expect inflation to rise, and more of them are predicting a recession.
Not only are Americans expecting higher inflation this year, but more of them are also predicting that the economy will slip into a recession, the Conference Board survey showed.
The survey also showed that Americans’ expectations for “income, business, and labor market conditions” this year fell sharply this month, falling 9.6 points to 65.2, the lowest level in 12 years. Meanwhile, the share of respondents expecting a recession in the next 12 months held steady in March at a nine-month high, CNN reported.
Stephen Miran, chair of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, said he isn’t concerned by the drop in consumer confidence. “Folks often let their political views influence their views of the economy, which tends to manifest in the confidence data,” Miran said Tuesday in a CNBC interview.
In his view, soft data such as the consumer confidence survey is less telling about the state of the economy compared to hard data like jobs reports, which paint a somewhat better picture.
Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo, told CNN soft data can manifest in hard data, but that remains to be seen. “Obviously we’ve seen some wobbles in the soft data, particularly the consumer surveys, but for it to become concerning, there has to be some pass-through into the hard data, in terms of growth and the labor market,” she told CNN.
