{"id":893566,"date":"2026-10-25T00:16:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T00:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/893566\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T00:16:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T00:16:35","slug":"consumer-sentiment-dips-on-worries-about-affordability-umichigan-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/893566\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumer sentiment dips on worries about affordability: UMichigan survey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story was originally published on CFO Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily CFO Dive newsletter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Dive Brief: <\/p>\n

Consumer sentiment inched down this month, eroded by worries that persistent inflation will further weaken buying power, the University of Michigan said Friday in a survey report. <\/p>\n

Household perceptions of the conditions for purchasing durable goods slumped 18% because of concerns about rising interest rates<\/a> and declining affordability, Joanne Hsu, the university’s surveys of consumers director, said in a statement. With less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 mid-term elections, a decline in sentiment among independent voters exceeded an increase in the outlook among Republicans and Democrats. <\/p>\n

“Purchasing power continues to dominate consumer views of the economy,” Hsu said, noting that sentiment has fallen 15% since just before the start of the U.S. war with Iran. <\/p>\n

Dive Insight: <\/p>\n

Selling prices this month rose at the fastest rate since Aug. 2022<\/a> as companies passed on rising production costs to customers, S&P Global said Friday, reporting on a survey of purchasing managers in the manufacturing and service sectors. <\/p>\n

“Cost pressures remain a key concern, notably as the renewed surge in oil prices reverberates through to impact a wide variety of goods and services,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in a statement. <\/p>\n

Worsening supply chain bottlenecks and increasing backlogs in order books have prompted companies to raise prices, he said. <\/p>\n

“The result is the sharpest increase in selling prices for over four years to a pace that indicates consumer price inflation is likely to rise further above the Fed’s target in the coming months,” Williamson said, referring to the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target. <\/p>\n

Fed officials are scheduled to discuss monetary policy on Oct. 27-28 as a war-induced surge in fuel prices speeds up inflation across much of the economy. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil has surged 79%<\/a> during the past year to $116.76. <\/p>\n

While pushing up inflation, higher fuel prices have also increased inflation expectations, Hsu said. <\/p>\n

Inflation expectations for a year from now rose this month to 4.7% from 4.6% in September, well above the 3.4% level in February before the U.S. and Israel launched air strikes against Iran, Hsu said. <\/p>\n

Long-run inflation expectations also increased, rising from 3.4% in September to 3.5% in October, she said. <\/p>\n

“After five years of above-target inflation, both short- and long-term inflation expectations have ticked up in recent months, exposing risks that elevated inflation expectations could become entrenched,” Hsu said Friday in a second report<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Fed officials closely track expectations for inflation, believing such sentiments can become self-fulfilling. Recent surveys by the Conference Board and New York Fed also showed that households expect price pressures to persist well above the central bank’s 2% goal. <\/p>\n

“There is little evidence from interviews that consumers conceptualize tariffs and oil price shocks as yielding one-time step-ups in price levels, rather than ongoing inflation,” Hsu said. <\/p>\n

“Indeed, consumers broadly expect inflation to accelerate,” she said, noting that “this year’s increases in inflation expectations are not limited to one part of the political spectrum.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published on CFO Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":893567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[5097,28,122,101,939,2993,2994,32455,2995,932,32456,20112,147,9323,1170,1666,6480,2996,2997,923,19533,3733,32457],"class_list":["post-893566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-401k","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-financial-information","tag-investing","tag-investment-tools","tag-investor","tag-market-news","tag-mortgage","tag-mutual-funds","tag-personal-finance","tag-quote","tag-real-estate","tag-retirement","tag-stock","tag-stock-research","tag-stock-valuation","tag-stocks","tag-suze-orman","tag-tax","tag-track-portfolio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893566","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=893566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}