{"id":605179,"date":"2026-04-25T07:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T07:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/605179\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T07:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T07:24:12","slug":"gas-prices-drive-consumer-sentiment-index-to-all-time-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/605179\/","title":{"rendered":"Gas Prices Drive Consumer Sentiment Index to All-Time Low"},"content":{"rendered":"

The gas price spike drove the University of Michigan\u2019s\u00a0Index of Consumer Sentiment<\/a> to the lowest level recorded in its over 73-year history.<\/p>\n

The index declined by 3.5 points in April, dropping to 49.8, amid the rising prices caused by the Iran war, according to the Surveys of Consumers\u2019\u00a0final results<\/a>\u00a0for April.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iran conflict appears to influence consumer views primarily through shocks to gasoline and potentially other prices,\u201d Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu<\/a>\u00a0said in the report. \u201cIn contrast, military and diplomatic developments that do not lift supply constraints or lower energy prices are unlikely to buoy consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The connection between the price of gas and consumer sentiment was seen earlier in April, when a softening of gas prices caused by the announcement of a two-week ceasefire was followed by a modest improvement in consumer sentiment, according to the report.<\/p>\n

April\u2019s decline in consumer sentiment was seen across political affiliation, income,\u00a0age\u00a0and education, per the report.<\/p>\n

The Surveys of Consumers also found that consumers\u2019 expectations for business conditions on both short and\u00a0long time\u00a0horizons declined to levels that were about as low as those seen a year earlier when tariffs were implemented.<\/p>\n

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It also found that consumers\u2019 year-ahead inflation expectations surged from 3.8% in March to 4.7%, the largest one-month increase since April 2025, and long-run inflation expectations climbed to 3.5%, the highest reading since October.<\/p>\n

The Conference Board<\/a>\u2019s most recent\u00a0Consumer Confidence Index<\/a>, which was released March 31, about a month after the war began, found that consumer confidence had inched up in March despite surging costs from tariffs and war.<\/p>\n

The impact of rising costs was not seen in the organization\u2019s headline or component indexes but was evident in consumers\u2019 12-month inflation expectations, which rose to their highest levels since August, The Conference Board said in a March 31 press release.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers\u2019 write-in responses on factors affecting the economy continued to skew towards pessimism,\u201d The Conference Board Chief Economist\u00a0Dana M Peterson<\/a>\u00a0said in the release. \u201cComments about prices and the cost of goods suggest that the cost of living remained at the top of consumers\u2019 minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Conference Board is set to release its next Consumer Confidence Index on Tuesday (April 28).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The gas price spike drove the University of Michigan\u2019s\u00a0Index of Consumer Sentiment to the lowest level recorded in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,18087,12586,101,2402,228242,3,3300,3301],"class_list":["post-605179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-consumer-sentiment","tag-cost-of-living","tag-economy","tag-inflation","tag-iran-war","tag-news","tag-pymnts-news","tag-whats-hot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}