Perceptions of the US economy darkened a third month in April pushing a key gauge of consumer moods to the lowest since summer of 2022, an update released on Tuesday showed.

At 97, the headline print on the Conference Board’s index missed estimates by a country mile. Consensus wanted 104. March’s headline was revised lower.

As the figure below shows, we’re now perilously close to levels which prevailed during the turbulent months following the onset of the pandemic.

Worryingly, the Expectations gauge printed an abysmal 66.4, among the lowest readings since the financial crisis.

As a reminder, anything below 80 on the Expectations measure is associated with recession over the ensuing 12 months. That needs a caveat: The gauge has sent out a number of false alarms in that regard since the Fed started hiking rates two years ago.

The Present Situation index held up better in April, but slipped from the prior month nevertheless.

The problem’s inflation. There’s no use dancing around it. “Elevated price levels, especially for food and gas, dominated consumer’s concerns,” Conference Board chief economist Dana Peterson said. Politics and global conflicts were “distant runners-up” in this month’s write-in responses.

Inflation expectations for the next 12 months were basically unchanged at 5.3%. (No one trades that series.) The labor differential deteriorated meaningfully to 25.3 (“plentiful” versus “hard to get”) from 29.5 in March.

Peterson went on to note that although the headline confidence gauge continues to drift lower, consumers’ generally constructive take on current conditions has consistently tempered dour views on the outlook since 2022.

That sense of impending, but never realized, doom, is an albatross for Joe Biden. Markets hate uncertainty, as the old adage goes, but I can assure you: Households — which is to say everyday Americans, whose votes Biden needs — hate it even more.

April’s survey showed the first decline in expectations for stock prices since November, when Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell “conspired” (note the scare quotes) to engineer what ultimately became one of the most pronounced five-month equity rallies in recent memory.

Notably, the share of consumers who expect higher rates over the next 12 months rose again, to 53.8%.