The New York Fed’s monthly consumer survey doesn’t typically make headlines, but the latest installment, released on Monday, was notable in at least two respects.

First, consumers’ perceptions of credit access improved meaningfully. The poll, which covered January, was conducted at a time when speculation around imminent rate cuts from the Fed ran rampant.

That speculation wasn’t (and isn’t) confined to the financial pages and Wall Street. Fed policy was front-page news late last year and early in 2024, while bets on rate cuts and the attendant fall in bond yields during November and December translated into sharply lower mortgage rates on Main Street.

Although it’s safe to say Fed policy isn’t something that comes up directly or explicitly at proverbial dinner tables across the country (I say proverbial because to the extent families still sit together in the evenings, there’s more scrolling than talking, and probably more scrolling than eating), the public is generally aware that the people who set the price of money are considering their options with inflation receding. Jerome Powell was on 60 Minutes last week.

All of that to set up the figure below, which shows that the combined share of respondents saying it’s harder to obtain credit now versus a year ago (i.e., “much harder” or “somewhat harder”) is now the lowest since April of 2022, the month after liftoff.

Similarly, the combined share expecting tighter credit conditions a year from now was the lowest since January of 2022.

The Fed critics among you will be righteously indignant. Or you’ll pretend to be: “Great! Just when inflation was on the ropes, consumers are less worried about a credit crunch and thereby more likely to spend, or least less likely to think twice about expenditures they were determined to make anyway, and that’s all inflationary.”

I won’t argue. If the Fed were truly determined to “finish the job,” where that means standing over inflation and putting a bullet in its forehead, they’d stand on the brakes until spending turns negative for several months and hiring slows to a halt. But they’re not going to do that. And Monday’s update on inflation expectations suggests they may not have to. Hold that thought.

Note that the combined share of consumers in the NY Fed poll who said credit was easier to obtain last month versus a year ago and the share who expected credit to be easier in the year ahead, rose to the highest since March of 2022 and September of 2021, respectively.

The transmission channel between policymakers talking about rate cuts at obscure speaking engagements (e.g., Chris Waller on November 28) and inflationary outcomes in the real economy might be more efficient than the Fed’s inclined to believe: Rate-cut pricing quickly moves from STIRs to bonds to stocks to mortgage rates and then on to consumer moods and spending, all within the short space of about 30 days if the inflection in University of Michigan sentiment seen over the last two months is any indication.

Still, the figures suggest Americans believe credit remains abnormally hard to get. Fed derision aside, the data plainly demonstrates that households perceive much tighter conditions versus those which prevailed pre-pandemic and prior to the onset of rate hikes.

And as things stand, inflation expectations continue to improve, suggesting no need for policy to turn the screws any further. The median three-year ahead expected inflation rate in the New York Fed poll fell to just 2.35% in January, according to Monday’s release.

Laugh as you will, but that’s actually the lowest in the history of the survey, with the caveat that the series only goes back to 2013.

Maybe Powell should hold his next press conference on an aircraft carrier, fly in on a fighter jet and give a speech in front a giant, star-spangled banner that reads “Mission Accomplished.”

In remarks delivered on Monday, Tom Barkin said that “Declaring victory at this point seems pretty bold.”