Morning Note
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Americans feel worse financially than at any point in 25 years.
The latest consumer sentiment survey from the University of Michigan came in at 52.2 — the lowest reading since 1952. That is not a rounding error. That is a generational signal about how people feel about their financial futures.
The headline number matters less than what drives it. When you dig into the data, the anxiety is not evenly distributed. It is concentrated in the middle — the people who earn too much to qualify for assistance, but not enough to insulate themselves from rising costs.
The political implications of this are significant. Historically, when consumer confidence drops this sharply, incumbents lose elections. But the correlation in 2026 is weaker than it has been — which tells us something important about the breakdown of the relationship between economic reality and political behaviour.
What we are watching is not just an economic story. It is a story about trust. Trust in institutions, trust in data, trust in the idea that the system is fundamentally fair.
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