Consumer Confidence

Americans’ attitudes toward the economy improved slightly this month as gas prices declined, but their outlook is still mostly negative by historical standards. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose 0.6 point to 91.2 in June, a figure that is still below the year-ago reading of 95.2. Consumer attitudes worsened after the Iran war caused oil and gas prices to spike, accelerating inflation and causing Americans’ inflation-adjusted incomes to decline. Before the pandemic, the index regularly topped 120.

Economics has a term for what U.S. grocery prices have done in recent years. It's the rockets and feathers effect. Rockets, because the cost of food for eating at home shot up up after the coronavirus pandemic. Feathers, because prices fall slowly once they increase. That’s frustrating for Americans digesting a 33% jump in grocery prices since 2019 — the sharpest increase in 50 years. Food price inflation peaked nationwide in 2022, but it hasn’t reversed course. An acceleration during the Iran war prolonged the aggravation. A recent study by the consulting firm Bain & Co. and market research company NielsenIQ found that shoppers are buying fewer items at grocery stores.