Consumer confidence in the US declined a third month in October as households continued to struggle with inflation and elevated prices for the goods and services they depend on.

This is why bouts of runaway price growth are so pernicious: Even after the pace slows, the price level change remains. The only cure for that, outright deflation, tends to be worse than the disease as it’s normally accompanied by sharp economic contractions.

Simply put: If frozen waffles and everything like frozen waffles were $1.79 three years ago and they’re $3.10 now, that’s a problem. Not for the well-off who couldn’t tell you what frozen waffles cost in the first place (“How much can they possibly be, $15?”), but for everybody else. And there are a lot more everybody elses than there are well-to-dos.

“Consumers’ write-in responses were led by references to prices and inflation, which continued to be the main topic influencing [households’] views of the economy,” Conference Board chief economist Stephanie Guichard said Tuesday, editorializing around the update.

As the figure shows, 94.6 on the headline counts among the worst reads of the post-pandemic era.

Although the Present Situation index ticked up from September, the Expectations gauge slipped to 71.5. That measure’s spent every month since February below 80, the threshold historically associated with the onset of recessions within 12 months.

It’s worth noting — I guess — that the headline actually topped estimates. Consensus was looking for 93.4. And September’s headline was revised higher. Another silver lining: The labor differential improved for the first time this year.

Still, the bigger picture’s just a long-running malaise. Neither of the two main US sentiment indexes has recovered from the original pandemic shock.

The figure above’s just a snapshot of the so-called “vibecession” with Trump’s new “golden age” annotated for comedic effect.

Guichard went on to call this month’s write-in comments “mostly negative overall,” albeit “less so” than September. Although the government shutdown didn’t impact the main confidence gauges, consumers did notice. “References to US politics were up notably,” Guichard wrote, adding that the shutdown was “mentioned multiple times as a key concern.”

An initial attempt to get a read on holiday spending suggests households will spend less this year than last. Consumers, the release said, “indicated they will likely buy fewer goods if the price of imported items is inflated by tariffs.”