{"id":701216,"date":"2026-06-13T06:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T06:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701216\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T06:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T06:36:10","slug":"easing-gas-prices-lift-consumer-sentiment-from-all-time-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701216\/","title":{"rendered":"Easing Gas Prices Lift Consumer Sentiment From All-Time Low"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consumer sentiment has ticked up as gas prices eased, according to preliminary results for June from the University of Michigan\u2019s Surveys of Consumers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s Index of Consumer Sentiment improved by about four index points, or 9%, compared to May. Sentiment improved across age,\u00a0education\u00a0and political\u00a0party.<\/p>\n

Surveys of Consumers Director\u00a0Joanne Hsu<\/a>\u00a0attributed the gains to an easing of gas prices in early June.<\/p>\n

\u201cLower-income consumers exhibited a particularly strong sentiment increase, consistent with the fact that gasoline comprises a larger share of their budgets,\u201d Hsu said.<\/p>\n

This marked a turnaround in consumer sentiment. The index had dropped to a record low in May, driven by\u00a0gas price<\/a>\u00a0worries and concerns related to the war in the Middle East. The previous record low had been set a month earlier, in April, for the same reasons. These readings were the lowest seen in the over 73-year history of the Index of Consumer Sentiment.<\/p>\n

The latest edition of\u00a0The Conference Board<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0Consumer Confidence Index<\/a>, which was released May 26, also found that\u00a0gas prices<\/a>\u00a0and worries about war-related inflation caused consumer confidence to fall in May. The Conference Board said at the time that consumers\u2019 write-in responses on factors influencing the economy had continued to \u201cskew towards pessimism\u201d in May and that references to prices and oil and gas had increased for the second month in a row.<\/p>\n

Advertisement: Scroll to Continue<\/p>\n

Despite the gains seen in early June in the newly released Surveys of Consumers, consumer sentiment in the latest survey remained 13% below where it was in January and 19% below where it was in June 2025, Hsu said. She added that consumers \u201cremain focused on kitchen table issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey feel burdened by the recent\u00a0escalation in\u00a0inflation and worry that higher inflation could remain stubborn going forward, particularly in the short run,\u201d Hsu said.<\/p>\n

The preliminary results for June gauged consumers\u2019 year-ahead inflation expectations at 4.6%, which was down from the 4.8% recorded in May but well above the 3.4% reading seen in February, before the start of the Iran conflict.<\/p>\n

Consumers\u2019 long-run inflation\u00a0expectations\u00a0reading was 3.4%, down from 3.9% in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Consumer sentiment has ticked up as gas prices eased, according to preliminary results for June from the University…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,18087,12586,101,2402,3,3300,3301],"class_list":["post-701216","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-news","tag-pymnts-news","tag-whats-hot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701216","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=701216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}