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Consumer Sentiment
About This Indicator
What Is Consumer Sentiment?
The University of Michigan's survey of how households feel about their finances and the economy, indexed to 100 in the first quarter of 1966. Before 1978 it ran every few months.
Why Does It Matter?
Most charts track what the economy did; this one tracks how people feel, and the gap between them is where much of politics happens. Mood can feed on itself: enough families putting off a car for fear of hard times can help bring them on.
Can Politics Influence It?
Strongly. Households tend to rate the same economy more kindly when their party holds the White House, and partisans' answers have flipped within weeks of an election.
Key Idea
People feel prices every time they shop, so the index answers to inflation at least as much as to jobs: it sank far lower in June 2022, with unemployment at 3.6% and inflation about 9%, than in April 2020, with unemployment near 15%.
Scored: A Rise Ranks Better
Source: Surveys of Consumers, University of Michigan. Index of Consumer Sentiment (tbmics.csv).
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