The good news is, inflation expectations in the new vintage of the NY Fed’s monthly household survey were steady.

The bad news is… well, everything else.

Although the poll isn’t a top-tier release, and thereby garners virtually no media attention, it was nevertheless eyed Monday for evidence that tariffs are fanning inflation concerns among US consumers. On that score, it was a relief that the price growth outlook was virtually unchanged at around 3% across all three polled horizons.

But that’s where the good news stopped. The mean perceived probability that the jobless rate will be higher a year from now rose nearly 5.5ppt in the poll. If you don’t count the onset of the pandemic, that was the single largest one-month spike on record.

At 39.44%, that series is now the highest since September of 2023. I don’t think I’m saying anything controversial to suggest that’s in no small part a function of DOGE.

Recall that the latest read on the Challenger survey showed announced job cuts in February soared to 172,017, the most for any February since the financial crisis, and the highest since July of 2020.

Relatedly, perceptions of debt servicing ability deteriorated further. The perceived probability of missing a minimum debt payment over the next three months jumped to 14.6%.

As the figure shows, that’s the highest level since April 2020, when the US economy was in an induced coma.

Scott Bessent has variously insisted that consumers should take comfort in falling 10-year yields, and Wall Street reckons a recession might compel the Fed to cut rates some more, thereby pulling down the cost of credit.

Suffice to say consumers didn’t get the memo yet. But who knows, maybe some of those memos were lost in the sorting room of an under-staffed US Post Office somewhere.

Finally, the cherry on the sundae — the golden icing on the cake: The combined share of households expecting to be worse off financially a year from now rose by almost 7ppt from January to February, among the largest jumps on record.

At 27.4%, that combined share’s the highest since November of 2023.

I’m sure this is all Joe Biden’s fault somehow, just like 2026’s recession will be Biden’s fault.

And just like Trump’s 2020 election loss was in part attributable to Hugo Chavez who, by then, had been dead for over seven years.