Good news. Or maybe I should say news that’s less bad.

The final word on University of Michigan sentiment for May suggested Donald Trump’s tariff pivot (nobody call him a “chicken“) managed to put a floor under US consumer moods, which came into this month in free fall.

The headline gauge registered 52.2 in Friday’s readout, up from the preliminary release and unchanged from April. To be sure, that’s still a God-awful print, but it marked the first time since December that sentiment didn’t deteriorate.

As for the beleaguered expectations measure, the revision was slight: From 46.5 as initially reported to 47.9.

The chart’s superfluous. If you’re following along at all, you know this gauge is loitering at its worst levels in decades. A 1.4ppt upward revision scarcely changes the overarching narrative.

That incremental improvement came on the heels of a sharper rebound in the Conference Board’s measure of consumers’ outlook for the US economy. “Expected business conditions improved after mid-month, likely a consequence of the trade policy announcement,” Michigan survey director Joanne Hsu remarked.

Earlier Friday, the BEA said personal incomes rose sharply in April, a result CNBC’s Rick Santelli pitched as evidence that Trump’s promised “golden age” is materializing after all. Rick won a mention on the presidential TruthSocial feed for his trouble.

But Hsu, in her editorial, suggested those gains might’ve moderated in May. Positive changes to expected business conditions “were offset by declines in current personal finances stemming from stagnating incomes,” she said, adding that although “consumers see the outlook for the economy as no worse than last month, they remained quite worried about the future.”

Mercifully, the inflation expectations gauges in the Michigan poll were revised sharply lower for May. The crucial five- to 10-year print, which registered an uncomfortable 4.6% in the preliminary release, showed 4.2% in the final report. The year-ahead measure was revised down to 6.6% from a truly harrowing 7.3% in the initial reading. Again, those numbers aren’t good, they’re just “less bad.”

In a testament to the notion that The White House might’ve miscalculated in assuming tax cuts would offset tariff angst in the minds of everyday people, Hsu said that “despite many headlines about the tax and spending bill,” the legislation “does not appear to be salient to consumers at this time.”

It’s almost as if the benefits of that legislation accrue primarily, albeit not exclusively, to the richest Americans, whereas tariff-related economic uncertainty impacts everyone, including and especially Main Street.