{"id":888342,"date":"2026-09-11T16:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T16:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/888342\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T16:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T16:42:18","slug":"consumer-outlook-plunges-in-september-as-inflation-outlook-worsens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/888342\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumer outlook plunges in September as inflation outlook worsens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beef products are offered for sale at a grocery store on Sept. 10, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. <\/p>\n

Scott Olson | Getty Images<\/p>\n

Consumer sentiment plunged in September amid heightened inflation fears, hitting its second lowest level on record on the University of Michigan’s monthly survey released Friday.<\/p>\n

The survey’s headline index<\/a> hit a level of 47.8, down 7.5% from the August reading and off 13.2% from a year ago. This was the second lowest reading on record for data going back to 1952 \u2014 the bottom coming in May as rising prices also jolted the outlook.<\/p>\n

“Year-ahead expectations for both personal finances and business conditions plunged,” survey director Joanne Hsu said. “With a resurgence in fuel prices and trade tensions, consumers anticipate greater pressures on their pocketbooks to come.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, the one-year inflation outlook surged to 4.6%, up 0.6 percentage point from the prior level and the highest since hitting the same level in June. <\/p>\n

The current conditions index in the survey fell 1.9% from the prior month, while the expectations measure tumbled 11.1%.<\/p>\n

Bureau of Labor Statistics data<\/a> also out Friday showed gasoline prices rose 3.9% in August and were up 27.4% from a year ago. Fuel oil prices soared 10.1% and were up 52% annually.<\/p>\n

Traders now see a Federal Reserve rate hike next week as a near certainty, with odds rising past 85% Friday after the BLS released its consumer price index showing inflation at 3.4% annually, far above the central bank’s 2% target.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beef products are offered for sale at a grocery store on Sept. 10, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. Scott…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":888343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,1348,5833,99,174,5056,164,9074],"class_list":["post-888342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-economy","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-economic-events","tag-economy","tag-prices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}