Commentary by Stephen Macaulay
Remember the bad old days of Sleepy Joe Biden, the man who with his woke, communist, fascist, radical bunch created the worst economy in American history, the worst conditions in WORLD HISTORY — though we don’t care about the World outside our borders, which are now very, very strong borders--?! Horrible economy. Terrible.
Unthinkable. That’s what everyone says.
Well it seems as though people — regular people who buy things like groceries and cars that aren’t Teslas (“I’m president. I want to pay full price.”) — are beginning to think maybe things weren’t so bad.
That is evident in numbers from the Survey of Consumers conducted by the University of Michigan.
The surveyed are asked about three categories:
- Index of Consumer Sentiment
- Current Economic Conditions
- Index of Consumer Expectations
So it is basically how they are feeling, how they are spending and how they anticipate things will be working out, economically speaking.
According to the preliminary numbers for March 2025, here’s how things look:
- Index of Consumer Sentiment: 57.9%
- Current Economic Conditions: 63.5%
- Index of Consumer Expectations: 54.2%
Now looking at those numbers you might be thinking: “Looks pretty good. All of them are above 50%.”
But then we go back in time to the numbers in March 2024, back in the days of the Biden debacle:
- Index of Consumer Sentiment: 79.4%
- Current Economic Conditions: 82.5%
- Index of Consumer Expectations: 77.4%
That’s right, declines of 27.1%, 23% and 30% from then until now — and we haven’t even started feeling the brunt of the tariffs. Is Trump ushering in an economic miracle or an economic debacle?
Joanne Hsu, Survey of Consumers Director, pointed out:
“Consumer sentiment slid another 11% this month, with declines seen consistently across all groups by age, education, income, wealth, political affiliations, and geographic regions.”
Yes, pretty much sounds like everyone.
Now some people might think that this is a distorted bad, very bad, twisted liberal agenda at play, Hsu pointed out:
“Despite their greater confidence following the election, Republicans posted a sizable 10% decline in their expectations index in March. For Independents and Democrats, the expectations index declined an even steeper 12 and 24%, respectively.”
One factor that is concerning all participants: Inflation.
The most recent number has an expected rate of inflation of 4.9%, “the highest reading since November 2022 and marking three consecutive months of unusually large increases of 0.5 percentage points or more.”
What’s more, looking at inflation expectations in the long run, it was 3.5% in February and is 3.9% in March, “the largest month-over-month increase seen since 1993.”
That’s during the days of Clinton.
The so-called “Golden Age” is apparently, so far as consumers are concerned, a Lead Balloon.
Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings. Read more of his commentaries on our Substack page.