US consumer confidence hits lowest level since onset of pandemic

Average 12-month ostentation expectations reached 7 percent this period which, the Conference Board said, was the 'highest since November 2022'. Photo: Frederic J. BROWN / AFP
Source: AFP

US user assurance has fallen to its lowest level since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to survey information published Tuesday, reflecting concerns astir President Donald Trump's tariff plans.

The Conference Board's US user assurance scale fell 7.9 points to 86.0 successful April, the probe enactment announced successful a statement, noting that mentions of tariffs successful write-in responses had reached an "all-time high."

This was the lowest level since May 2020, a spokesperson confirmed to AFP.

"Consumer assurance declined for a 5th consecutive period successful April," Conference Board elder economist Stephanie Guichard said successful a statement.

"The 3 anticipation components -- business conditions, employment prospects, and aboriginal income -- each deteriorated sharply, reflecting pervasive pessimism astir the future," she added.

Donald Trump's tariff plans person unnerved investors, sending marketplace volatility soaring and user assurance plunging.

Confidence successful the fiscal markets has besides tanked, according to Guichard, with 48.5 percent of consumers expecting banal prices to autumn implicit the adjacent 12 months -- the highest stock since October 2011.

In different worrying sign, mean 12-month ostentation expectations reached 7 percent this period which, Guichard said, was the "highest since November 2022, erstwhile the US was experiencing highly precocious inflation."

If sustained, higher ostentation expectations can origin a vicious rhythm of terms hikes, arsenic businesses preemptively rise prices successful anticipation that their costs volition emergence further successful the future.

"Bad assurance numbers don't construe into mediocre user spending, luckily," Navy Federal Credit Union firm economist Robert Frick wrote successful a enactment shared with AFP.

"The existent trial of however Americans walk volition beryllium seen time erstwhile idiosyncratic income numbers are released," helium said.

"Those person been rising strongly, and past shows that if we person money, we'll walk it contempt the jitters we whitethorn beryllium feeling," helium added.

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Source: AFP