Surprise! Confidence among US consumers fell off the map in February, as rampant policy uncertainty, tariff-related inflation concerns and the perception of generalized disarray left households feeling more anxious for a third month.

The Conference Board’s gauge dropped seven points from January, the largest monthly decline since August of 2021 and the third-largest month-to-month drop since the onset of the pandemic.

As noted, February marked the third consecutive drop, a result which, if I may be so bold, runs counter to the notion that America’s on the cusp of a new “golden age,” as Donald Trump’s variously promised.

As the figure shows, we’re now perilously close to taking out the bottom of the range that’s held for most of the post-pandemic era.

There were very few bright spots in Tuesday’s release. Confidence fell across all age groups and key income cohorts, although it improved for those making less than $15,000 and those making between $100,000 and $125,000. “Consumers became pessimistic about future business conditions and less optimistic about future income,” Conference Board senior economist Stephanie Guichard said.

Do note: The labor differential deteriorated from both sides, which is to say the share who said jobs were “plentiful” fell and the share who described them as “hard to get” rose. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that firing tens of thousands of federal workers won’t help perceptions of the employment landscape.

The expectations gauge was a veritable disaster, falling nearly 10 points to just 72.9. February thus marks the first sub-80 reading on that gauge since June, which matters because anything below 80’s indicative of a looming recession. (Of course, that forward-looking indicator hasn’t been prescient in the post-COVID era.)

Tuesday’s highly unfortunate confidence readout added to mounting concerns about US growth coming as it did on the heels of the worst read on services sector activity in years, falling existing home sales and a poor showing on University of Michigan sentiment which was accompanied by a 30-year high print for that survey’s closely-watched long run inflation expectations measure.

Speaking of inflation expectations, they “surged” (Guichard’s word) in the Conference Board survey to 6% on a 12-month horizon. “This increase likely reflected a mix of factors, including sticky inflation but also the recent jump in prices of key household staples like eggs and the expected impact of tariffs,” Guichard remarked, adding that write-in responses this month were “dominated” by “comments on the current Administration and its policies.”

Nothing further.