Consumer attitudes worsened in March as President Donald Trump’s prices sparked a rout of the market and warnings from a possible recession, data from the Conference Board survey on Tuesday. The feeling worsened more than economists expected.
The gauge has marked the fourth consecutive month of aggravation of attitudes, going to its lowest level since 2021.
The expectations of future income had stabilized even during the recent decrease in global feeling, but this measure of the expected income fell in particular in March, said the board of directors.
Fear of income suggests that “concerns about the economy and the labor market have started to spread in consumer assessments of their personal situation,” said Stephanie Guichard, principal economist of world indicators on the board of directors, in a statement.
The new data on consumer feeling arrived a week before the start of an additional US tariffs, indicating a potential fear of a new escalation in an ongoing world trade war.
Trump described on April 2 on April 2 as an “liberation day”, saying that a large list of reciprocal prices would rebalance US trade relations.
Trump’s plan for reciprocal prices next week, however, should be more targeted and narrower than what he had previously judged, although the plan remains under discussion, sources told ABC News on Monday. The administration focuses on business partners who have major commercial imbalances with the United States, sources said.
A customer purchasing eggs in a grocery store on March 12, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois.
Images Scott Olson / Getty
The news of a potentially softer approach to upcoming prices joined American actions on Monday, recovering some of the losses suffered earlier this month. The main stock market indices increased slightly Tuesday at the start of trade.
Consumers’ feeling seems to be aligned with the depreciation of expectations in the federal reserve. Last week, the Fed predicted economic growth at the end of the year and higher inflation than in a December forecast.
Speaking at a press conference in Washington, DC, last Wednesday, the president of the Fed, Jerome Powell, defeated prices for a “good part” of recent inflation.
By certain key measures, however, the economy remains in good shape. A recent jobs on jobs showed regular hiring last month and a historically low unemployment rate. Inflation is well below a peak reached in 2022, although price increases recorded almost a percentage point higher than the Fed target of 2%.
However, fears of recession go up to Wall Street while businesses and consumers travel the trade war. Goldman Sachs earlier this month has closed recession from 15% to 20%. Moody’s Analytics has set the chances of recession over the next year at 35%.
Consumer expenditure, which represents about two -thirds of American economic activity, could weaken if the feeling of Sours buyers, Bret Kenwell, American investment analyst at Etoro, told ABC News in a statement.
“A reduction in expenses has the potential to resonate throughout the economy,” said Kenwell.
