Consumer sentiment rebounds slightly after hitting lowest level on record

By Alicia Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — Americans still feel lousy about the economy and worry that the US-Israeli war with Iran will continue to push up prices.

The University of Michigan’s final consumer sentiment reading for April measured 49.8, a slight improvement from the preliminary report earlier this month but still at the lowest level ever on records that go back to 1952.

“After the two-week ceasefire was announced and gas prices softened a touch, sentiment recovered a modest portion of its early-month losses,” Joanne Hsu, director of the university’s Surveys of Consumers, wrote in a statement.

The Middle East conflict has roiled the global economy and left Americans grappling with sharply higher gas prices, a pickup in inflation and growing uncertainty about their finances.

Current personal finances worsened by 9% in April, and about half of consumers surveyed spontaneously mentioned that high prices were eroding their standards of living, Hsu noted.

Consumers’ year-ahead inflation expectations shot higher this month, rising to 4.7% from 3.8% in March. It was the largest one-month jump since April 2025, a month when President Donald Trump announced a sweeping set of steep tariffs on many nations.

The war and its economic fallout comes at a time when Americans were already navigating high costs of living from a post-pandemic inflation spike and years of prices climbing much faster than has been typical.

Sentiment is hovering just below levels seen in June 2022, when inflation hit a four-decade high.

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