Could’ve been worse. Seriously. It really could’ve been worse.

One of this week’s only two notable US macro releases managed to beat estimates on Tuesday, a relief in the context of extremely poor household sentiment data.

The Conference Board headline was 91.2 for February, far better than the 87.5 consensus. The cherry on the sundae: Last month’s abysmal readout was revised meaningfully higher.

Now let’s be honest: We’re putting lipstick on pigs here. As the figure above reminds you, these are still terrible readouts.

Dana Peterson, the Conference Board’s chief economist, didn’t dance around the issue. “Consumers’ pessimistic expectations for the future eased somewhat [but] the Present Situation Index continued to decline, as net views on current business conditions fell.”

The Present Situation Index Peterson mentioned is the lowest since 2016 if you exclude the 2020 pandemic plunge. As discussed in this week’s macro preview, Americans are dejected.

We’re in a place now on household mood polling where anything that’s not an unmitigated disaster counts as “good” news. And Tuesday’s update from the Conference Board at least wasn’t an unmitigated disaster. Notably, the labor differential improved.

But, to reiterate, it’s rough out there. February’s write-in responses “continued to skew towards pessimism,” Peterson went on, adding that “comments about prices, inflation and the cost of goods remained at the top of consumer’s minds.”

[Insert your favorite Trump ‘Golden Age’ quip.]