Consumer Confidence Sinks to 81.9 — Lowest Since 2014 — as More Americans Call Their Finances "Bad" Than "Good" for the First Time in the Survey's History
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell 6.7 points to 81.9 in September (from 88.6, revised down from 89.4), its lowest reading since April 2014 and far below the ~89 consensus. Two firsts/twelve-year lows in one print:
- "For the first time in the four-year history of the survey question, more respondents said their personal finances were bad as opposed to good12" (CNBC).
- Chief economist Dana Peterson: "Consumer appraisals of current business conditions became negative for the first time since September 2024" and "References to prices, the high cost of goods and services, and oil and gas prices in particular, rose to new heights, reflecting September's surge in fuel costs."
The internals match the fuel-shock story: Present Situation −7.9 to 109.3; Expectations −5.9 to 63.6; the jobs plentiful-minus-hard-to-get differential eroded 2.5pp to just 1.7%; 12-month inflation expectations rose to a 6.1% mean / 5.1% median. The University of Michigan's gauge separately fell 7% in September to its second-lowest reading on record.
The fuel driver is unambiguous: AAA's national diesel average set repeated all-time records this month — $6.27 (Sept 15, WSJ), $6.51 (Sept 20), peak $6.5276 on Sept 22 — while regular gasoline sits at $4.48, the highest ever for this time of year. The oil swing factor is still live: per a WSJ exclusive cited in TheStreet Pro's wrap, Trump rejected Iran's seven-day ceasefire proposal and told aides he expects to resume bombing after the Nov 3 midterms, even as the administration released up to 40M barrels from the SPR and WTI fell 3.4% to ~$89 Tuesday.
What it means: this is the sharpest household-pressure signal of the cycle — sentiment is now screaming while hard spending data (August retail sales +1.2%, see September Retail Sales: The +0.8% Beat Was the Gas Pump — Core Control Slows to +0.1% After August's +1.2% Surge, and Q4 Momentum Fades) still held up. The saving-rate watch (<2.0%) and Thursday's personal-saving data in today's PCE report will show whether households are financing fuel bills by drawing down cushions. As eToro's Bret Kenwell put it: "Sentiment now sits at multi-year lows as persistent inflation and higher costs weigh on households. The question becomes whether we'll see this materialize into weaker consumer spending — a question that earnings season will help answer." With a 6.1% inflation expectation embedded, wage-restoration politics into the midterms gets harder; watch whether the labor differential (1.7%) and Friday payrolls confirm the demand side is finally cracking.
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An instance of For squeezed households, the price shock is no longer transitory. — Sentiment at a twelve-year low with a first-ever negative personal-finance reading and 6.1% expected inflation shows households treating the prices that broke their budgets as permanently broken. ↩︎
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An instance of Diesel, not crude, is where an energy shock becomes unprintable. — The diesel-fueled cost squeeze has dragged consumer sentiment to its second-lowest reading on record — the unprintable household face of the physical energy shock. ↩︎