Americans are feeling worse about the economy than even during the height of the COVID lockdowns.

Consumer confidence crashed when inflation hit 9% in the summer of 2022, and then rose steadily until the last few months when we’ve seen a steady decline. It’s not clear why, given the improvement in the employment situation and the better news on inflation. It could be that Americans see the out-of-control spending and debt as the curse that it is.

So we broke out loud laughing when we read this headline announcement from the World Bank.

Talk about grading inflation.  If this is “exceptional”, we shudder to think what “poor” looks like.