Americans were the most pessimistic last month on the US labor market since the world’s largest economy was shuttered for a plague.

That was one darkly amusing takeaway from the latest installment of the New York Fed’s consumer survey, released Tuesday into a hazy, post-Labor Day tape.

If you’re wondering whether anyone cares about (forget “trades on”) the NY Fed poll, the answer’s a hard “no.” In terms of import, it’s a distant third when it comes to household mood surveys, behind the University of Michigan sentiment release (the gold standard) and the Conference Board’s confidence poll.

I only mention it when it reflects something bad. (At least I’m honest. That’s more than you can say for the vast majority of online news sources, both mainstream and otherwise.)

The figure below shows you the poll’s measure of unemployment expectations, or the perceived average probability that the jobless rate will be higher a year from now.

As you can see, that metric rose 1.6ppt to 44.4%. That’s not only the highest since April of 2020, when — and try not to laugh, because absurd as this is, it’s mostly true — Steve Mnuchin rescued Main Street from financial oblivion, it’s also the highest reading in history excluding COVID.

Plainly, “history” is misleading in this context. The series only dates to 2013, which means it misses capitalism’s brush with death in September of 2008.

Still, it’s notable that more than four in 10 Americans think the unemployment rate’s headed higher despite supposedly abundant job openings and in the broader context of a “golden age” for the US economy.

The good news is, Americans reckoned the probability of losing a job they already have in the next 12 months at just 13.8%. That was the lowest since February 2026, when Ali Khamenei was still among the living.