“Consumer sentiment slid another 11 percent this month, with declines seen consistently across all groups by age, education, income, wealth, political affiliations, and geographic regions. Sentiment has now fallen three consecutive months and is currently down 22 percent from December 2024.”
“While current economic conditions were little changed, expectations for the future deteriorated across multiple facets of the economy, including personal finances, labor markets, inflation, business conditions, and stock markets. Many consumers cited the high level of uncertainty around policy and other economic factors; frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers to plan for the future, regardless of one’s policy preferences. Consumers from all three political affiliations are in agreement that the outlook has weakened since February.”
“Despite their greater confidence following the election, Republicans posted a sizable 10 percent decline in their expectations index in March. For Independents and Democrats, the expectations index declined an even steeper 12 and 24 percent, respectively,” says the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers’ mid-month reports. Ouch to the Trump Reich on that Republican voter hit.