“Inflation continued to be of paramount concern to consumers; 47% of consumers blamed inflation for eroding their living standards, just one point shy of the all-time high last reached during the Great Recession” of 2008-2009, University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu said in a statement on the poll.
The UMich Consumer Sentiment Index stood at 50 for June, down 14.4% from May’s reading of 58.4. Year-on-year, it was down 41.5% from the June 2021 reading of 85.5.
Consumer spending accounts for 70% of US gross domestic product.
Hsu said June’s worsening of the Consumer Sentiment Index from May’s record low came as Americans across income, age, education, geographic region, political affiliation, stock-holding and home-ownership status showed large declines in their optimism about the US economy.
“About 79% of consumers expected bad times in the year ahead for business conditions, the highest since 2009,” Hsu said. “Consumers also expressed the highest level of uncertainty over long-run inflation since 1991, continuing a sharp increase that began in 2021.”
US inflation, as indicated by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was at a four-decade high of 8.6% in the year to May.
Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist at property market consultancy CoreLogic, told the Fortune publication on Friday that consumer confidence had likely been “shattered by high inflation and fears of recession.”
After leaving interest rates unchanged at between zero and 0.25% for two years during the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Reserve, or Fed, has raised them since March, bringing rates now to a high of 1.75%. The central bank has said it will continue with its hikes till current inflation of more than 8% returns to its target of 2% per annum.
Economists, however, fear that the Federal Reserve will push the economy into a recession with its quantum of rate hikes. This month’s 75-basis point, or three quarter percent point, increase by the Federal Reserve was the highest in 28 years. The economy contracted by 1.4% in the first quarter of the year and will slip into a recession if it does not return to positive growth by the end of the second quarter.