It’d be hard to conjure a worse inflation expectations-sentiment conjuncture than that on display earlier this month in the preliminary University of Michigan consumer poll for March.

But anything’s possible when Donald Trump’s president, so I suppose no one should’ve been surprised Friday when the final release betrayed an even drearier overall mood and an even higher estimation of longer run price pressures.

The headline sentiment print settled at 57, a pitiful result worse than all but three readings observed during the Biden administration. If the national mood doesn’t improve soon, Trump’s going to risk this series revisiting the record lows hit in June and July of 2022.

Bad as that is, the five- to 10-year inflation expectations print was worse. Recall that the metric rose to 3.9% in the first read for March, a development I described as a disaster for the Fed. A few days later, at the press conference following the March FOMC meeting, Jerome Powell pretended policymakers don’t care any more about that measure of inflation expectations than any other measure, a contention I characterized as a lie. Indeed, Powell was called out on live television by a reporter who reminded him that in fact, the Fed did seem to put a lot of emphasis on that series in June of 2022, when commencing 75bps rate hikes.

In any case, it’s a good thing Powell doesn’t “place huge weight on it,” as he put it earlier this month, because that series was revised even higher in the final read for March. Now, five- to 10-year Michigan inflation expectations officially boasts a four-handle.

At 4.1%, that series is the highest since February of 1993. If the question is, “When was the last time that series rose 0.9ppt over just two months?” the answer’s “Never.”

I love this, but certainly not for what it says about the psychological distress vexing so many Americans just three months into Trump’s second term, but rather because it underscores my assertion that this administration is driving the good ship America straight into an iceberg.

Let me emphasize: The most widely-cited gauge of longer run household inflation expectations just rose by nearly a full percentage point in the short space of two months, the largest such increase on record, and the series itself now sports a four-handle for the first time since Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” sat atop the Billboard Hot 100.

As for consumers’ views on the labor market, survey director Joanne Hsu had some bad news. “Two-thirds expect unemployment to rise in the year ahead,” she said Friday. That was the highest share since 2009.