Confidence Publications of the February consumer The greatest fall since 2021 in the last slowdown of the economy

Consumers became more pessimistic about economic perspectives in February as concerns were prepared on a deceleration economy and the increase in inflation, the conference board reported on Tuesday.

The board Consumer Trust Index It went to 98.3 for the month, below 7 points and below the Dow Jones forecast for 102.3. This was the lowest reading since June 2024 and the largest monthly fall since August 2021.

“The opinions on the current conditions of the labor market were weakened. Consumers became pessimistic about future and less optimistic commercial conditions about future income,” said Stephanie Guichard, the main economist of the global indicators of the Board. “Pessimism on future employment perspectives worsened and reached a maximum of ten months.”

The decrease in consumer confidence comes with the president Donald Trump threatening additional tariffs against US business partners. Trump said on Monday that the duties against Canada and Mexico “will advance” in March after a delay in February.

Economists worry that tariffs can cause another round of inflation at a time when the Federal Reserve is considering further reducing interest rates or staying stable as policy formulators weigh the impact of the aggressive movements of fiscal policy and Trump commercial.

Consumers are also worried: 12 -month inflation expectations increased to 6%, compared to 5.2% the previous month and far ahead of the 2% of the Federal Reserve.

“This increase probably reflected a combination of factors, including sticky inflation, but also the recent leap in the prices of key basic products such as eggs and the expected impact of rates,” Guichard said. “There was a strong increase in commerce mentions and tariffs, returning to an invisible level since 2019. In particular, comments on the current administration and their policies dominated the answers.”

The Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, warned about the potential of slow “sticky” inflation. He blamed the Biden administration for promoting too much an economy that depends too much on government spending and said that the plan now is to build a more diverse economy through tax cuts, deregulation and tariffs.

“The excessive dependence of the previous administration on excessive government spending and the dominant regulation left us with an economy that could have exhibited some reasonable metrics, but which was finally fragile underneath and went to an unstable balance,” Bessent said.

The stock moved briefly below After the launch of the Conference Board, while the treasure yields joined an acute hole in the day. The 10 -year treasure performance, a traditional barometer for growth expectations, fell almost 10 basic points, or 0.1 percentage points, 4.29%.

“We should expect some short -term behavior changes within the consumer,” wrote Jeffrey Roach, US chief economist. In LPL Financial. “Consumers are increasingly nervous about the unknown impacts of possible tariffs and could extract the demand from consumers, since they anticipate higher prices for imports in the near future.”

Although most economic indicators reflect continuous growth, the board meter of the conference coincides with other recent surveys that show a diminishing confidence. Last week, the University of Michigan reported a larger monthly decrease than expected of almost 10% in February, while the five -year inflation prospects among respondents reached its highest level since 1995.

In the conference board survey, the decrease was found with age groups and income levels. The survey covered the period of time until February 19.

Together with the general fall in trust, the Expectations Index fell 9.3 points to a 72.9 reading, the first time since June 2024 that the measure has fallen below the level consisting of the recession. However, current measures conditions improved a bit, with 19.6% saying that the conditions are “good”, plus 1.1 percentage points from January.

At the same time, a closely monitored measure of the labor market saw a worsening, with 33.4% saying that jobs were “abundant”, while 16.3% said the positions are “difficult to get”. That compared to the respective readings of 33.9% and 14.5% in January.