American consumers are more pessimistic about the economy than at any time in recorded history.
The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 47.6 in preliminary April 2026 readings released Friday—a 10.7% drop from March’s 53.3 and the lowest reading in the survey’s 74-year history.
Three of the lowest consumer sentiment readings ever recorded have now occurred within the past nine months of Trump’s second term.
During Biden’s worst stretch, sentiment eventually recovered as inflation cooled and the Fed’s rate hikes took hold.
Still, it’s worth posing a question that gets asked far too rarely: How good is consumer sentiment, actually, at measuring economic reality?
By nearly every traditional yardstick, the economy has been performing better than sentiment suggests—and economists have been struggling to explain the gap ever since.
Another data point worth bearing in mind: Consumer sentiment hit an all-time high of 112 in January 2000—six months before the dotcom bubble burst and the economy began shedding jobs. »
