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consumers
Data Shows 'Shocking' Consumer Sentiment Plunge as Trump Economic Chaos Takes Hold
"Bloodbath of a consumer sentiment print," said one policy expert. "People hate the Trump economy."
Mar 14, 2025
Data published Friday shows that U.S. consumer sentiment cratered in early March to its lowest level since late 2022 as President Donald Trump's erratic tariff policies and assault on the federal government—the nation's largest employer—spurred far-reaching economic chaos.
The University of Michigan's closely watched consumer confidence gauge shows that sentiment "slid another 11% this month, with declines seen consistently across all groups by age, education, income, wealth, political affiliations, and geographic regions."
"While current economic conditions were little changed, expectations for the future deteriorated across multiple facets of the economy, including personal finances, labor markets, inflation, business conditions, and stock markets," said Joanne Hsu, director of the university's Surveys of Consumers. "Many consumers cited the high level of uncertainty around policy and other economic factors; frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers to plan for the future, regardless of one's policy preferences."
"Consumers from all three political affiliations are in agreement that the outlook has weakened since February," Hsu added. "Despite their greater confidence following the election, Republicans posted a sizable 10% decline in their expectations index in March. For Independents and Democrats, the expectations index declined an even steeper 12% and 24%, respectively."
The survey also found that consumer inflation expectations jumped to their highest level since November 2022, an indication that Americans are concerned about the impact that Trump's trade war will have on prices, which the president promised during his campaign to bring down.
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement that the "shocking consumer sentiment numbers are a referendum on the president’s mishandling of the economy, just 54 days into office."
"Working families are longing for stability as their grocery bills and rent payments continue to climb, but Trump's chaotic approach to the economy has them feeling more uncertain than ever," said Jacquez. "Consumers are rightly terrified about what lies ahead. The administration is more focused on gutting Social Security to pay for tax giveaways to billionaires and corporations than they are making life more affordable for working families."
The new consumer survey data comes a week after a Labor Department report showed that the U.S. added significantly fewer jobs than expected in February, which one economist described as "the calm before the storm" as the Trump administration fires tens of thousands of federal workers, fuels widespread unease and confusion with his tariff threats, and backs devastating cuts to Medicaid and other key programs.
"The administration seems determined to squander and wreck the strong economy," Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote earlier this week. "Each of the individual policies they are pursuing—illegal layoffs of federal workers, mass deportations, constant threats and retractions of broad-based tariffs, and Medicaid spending cuts—would be bad for the economy. But each policy is also being pursued with maximum levels of chaos and incoordination, creating unprecedented levels of economic uncertainty. This uncertainty is itself a serious economic threat."
"Absent a radical reversal of the current policy agenda, the U.S. will be a poorer country at the end of Trump's term than it should have been," Bivens added. "The only open question is how rapidly this de-growth will happen, whether more quickly through a sharp recession or more slowly as the supply destruction outpaces demand destruction."
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'No One Voted for This': #TeslaTakedown Actions Pick Up Steam
"We need an alternative to watching things unravel from our couches," said one of the organizers behind the protests.
Mar 05, 2025
Protests at Tesla showrooms and dealerships that are united by the slogan #TakedownTesla are picking up steam—with over 65 actions planned around the country and in Europe through the end of this week, and dozens scheduled for Saturday alone.
Tesla, billionaire Elon Musk's electric vehicle company, has become a site of resistance in the growing movement against the GOP megadonor's central role in the second Trump administration.
Since Trump's inauguration, Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have helped oversee punishing cuts to the federal workforce, infiltrated government agencies, and gained access to computer systems with sensitive personal information.
Because Musk is unelected, the protest movement urges people to make their voices heard as consumers—by selling their vehicles, getting rid of their stock in Tesla, and showing up to protest.
Already, protests have taken place in Devon, Pennsylvania; Berkley, California; Tucson, Arizona; Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Signs at protests include messages likes "Musk is the Fraud" and "Tesla Funds Fascists," in part a reference to Musk's apparent Nazi salute during a post-inauguration celebration.
"No One Voted for This," assert the organizing materials provided on the #TeslaTakedown website.
Actor and director Alex Winter, one of the core organizers behind the protests and the creator of the movement's website, said that #TakedownTesla started on Bluesky between friends and activists and grew, according to Business Insider. It grew after Winter created the website to help centralize the effort.
"There have now been protests outside of Tesla locations in over 100 cities, and the movement is picking up speed and going global," wrote Winter in a piece for Rolling Stone that was published on February 21.
"We need an alternative to watching things unravel from our couches, that inspires hope and shows that we still have the capacity to oppose those who want to tear the fabric of our society apart and extract their own benefit from the wreckage," he continued.
Tesla's stock experienced a bump after Trump's election, but the company's share price has plummeted more than 40% from it's post-election peak in December, wiping out those gains. The tumbling of its stock meant that February was Tesla's second-worst month on record, only eclipsed by the 37% loss the stock experienced in December 2022, according to Yahoo Finance.
In Europe, where Musk has promoted far-right political parties, Tesla sales have slumped.
On Monday, one observer shared a visual of Tesla's stock declining and wrote "Turns out pissing off a good deal of the global population isn't good for business," along with #TeslaTakedown.
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Consumer Confidence Index Nosedives After Month of Trump Presidency
"No federal government has ever before threatened government workers with mass firings," said one economic analyst, "and it is starting to scare the daylights out of consumer."
Feb 25, 2025
With the first month of U.S. President Donald Trump's second term in office characterized by threats to impose tariffs on close international allies and the mass firing of tens of thousands of federal workers—but not the promised lower grocery prices that Trump repeatedly touted during his campaign—a survey found consumer confidence plummeted in February to its lowest level since last June.
The Conference Board, a global nonprofit think tank, reported on Tuesday the sharpest monthly decline in consumer confidence in four years, with the index dropping from 105.3 in January to 98.3 this month.
Economists had projected the index to read 103 in February, but with respondents telling the Conference Board that they were concerned about inflation and Trump's tariffs plan, consumer anxiety was higher than experts had anticipated.
Trump said shortly after taking office that he would impose tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, only to suspend them for several weeks. On Monday, the president said at a news conference that the tariffs would start next month.
The impending policy has set off fears of a trade war and higher costs for U.S. consumers.
Trump's proposal—and his "flip-flopping every couple of days" on imposing the tariffs, said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), "hurts working-class Americans."
Low consumer sentiment and confidence, said Jared Bernstein, former chair of the United States Council of Economic Advisers, "is clearly tied to Trump administration actions, especially tariffs and the extensive focus on retribution over working families' living standards."
While references to tariffs in consumers' responses to the survey were at their highest level since 2019, said Stephanie Guichard, senior economist for global indicators at the Conference Board, mentions of "inflation and prices in general continue to rank high" as well.
Trump focused heavily on the prices of eggs and other staple groceries during his campaign, but prices have risen in the last month, partially due to the spread of bird flu among flocks across the country—a crisis that the Trump administration reduced its ability to respond to this month when the U.S. Department of Agriculture accidentally fired several employees who had been working on the outbreaks.
NPR noted in a memo that a survey out of University of Michigan this week also showed that consumer sentiment dropped 10% this month from January.
Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at financial markets research firm FWDBONDS, told Al Jazeera that the mass firing of roughly 30,000 federal workers has also led to growing anxiety among consumers about labor markets, a potential coming recession, and the health of the economy.
"Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the outlook," Rupkey told the outlet. "No federal government has ever before threatened government workers with mass firings and it is starting to scare the daylights out of consumers."
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