You may have seen earlier this week that consumer confidence fell again in September.

We looked at the longer-term trends and found that confidence soared during the Trump presidency, crashed during the lockdowns, rallied during the post-pandemic recovery, and has drifted steadily downward since August 2021. The index was at 130 throughout most of the Trump presidency and is now down to below 100.

Even with inflation down to 3%, families are still stressed out over the cost of nearly everything.