Americans continue to have a bleak outlook on the economy.
Consumer sentiment fell for the fourth straight month, according to a survey from the University of Michigan.
The index of consumer sentiment in April was 52.2, down 8% from March and down 32% from January.
"Consumers perceived risks to multiple aspects of the economy, in large part due to ongoing uncertainty around trade policy and the potential for a resurgence of inflation looming ahead," Joanne Hsu, the Director of the Surveys of Consumers at the University of Michigan, wrote.
The data from the survey matches other recent polling on consumer sentiment.
A new survey from the Associated Press and NORC found about 6 in 10 adults disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling the economy in general.
The survey found 59% of adults believe Trump has gone "too far" with tariffs. Democrats are far more likely to believe that (86%) compared to Republicans (29%).
It also found 45% of adults say they have major stress regarding their personal finances, while 35% admit to having minor stress over their finances.
More than half of adults said they were concerned about the possibility of the U.S. economy going into a recession.
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But those sentiment surveys are what economists consider "soft data," and they don't match recent "hard data" figures that show an economy that's relatively healthy.
That's because those hard data figures lag behind consumer sentiment, according to Phillip Powell, the executive director of the Indiana Business Research Center and an associate professor of business economics and public policy in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
"Hard data tells us where the economy has been," Powell said. "Soft data tells us where the economy is going."
Powell worries that given how consumers are feeling, the economy is not headed in the right direction.
"Households spend money based upon how they feel, and so if we can measure how people are feeling before they reach into their wallet, we're going to know how much money they pull out," Powell said. "If tariffs stick, the anxiety is going to stay. ... So not only are we going to see higher prices, but we're going to empty shelves, which makes the fear even worse, which means that we're going to enter a negative spiral, which could take us into a recession."
Americans will get a better sense if the "hard data" follows consumer sentiment in the week ahead. The Bureau of Economic Analysis releases U.S. first-quarter GDP on April 30, and April's jobs report is due out on May 2.
