Input Stories

A measure of consumer confidence fell to a low not seen in more than a decade (The Wall Street Journal, subscription).

The details: “The Conference Board’s monthly survey showed that forward-looking expectations for income, business and labor-market conditions dropped to the lowest level in 12 years. Expectations fell to an index level of 65.2, below the threshold of 80 that often signals a recession, the Conference Board said.”

• The Conference Board’s headline index decreased to 92.9, dropping 7.2 points over the past month—the fourth month of decline in a row.
• “Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected the index to land at 93.5 in March.”

Word on the street: Written responses to the survey “showed that inflation is still a major concern for consumers and that worries about the impact of trade policies and tariffs in particular are on the rise,” the Conference Board said.

Another alarm: A second important measure of consumer sentiment, a survey run by the University of Michigan, shows consumer confidence in mid-March was a full 27% lower than at the same time last year (The Wall Street Journal, subscription).

Manufacturers worry: The NAM’s Q1 2025 Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey also showed rising levels of foreboding among manufacturing leaders.

• In the survey conducted from Feb. 11 to Feb. 28, trade uncertainties moved to the top of the list of manufacturers’ concerns—with 76.2% of respondents citing them as their primary worry. Increased raw material costs came in second, cited by 62.3% of those surveyed.
• In fact, manufacturers expect prices on their companies’ product lines to go up by 3.6% in the next year, an increase from 2.3% in Q4 2024 and the highest since Q3 2022, when inflation was more than 8%.

The NAM says: NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons urged policymakers to pursue stability in light of the current economic uncertainty, saying in response to the survey: “We are calling for a comprehensive manufacturing strategy that includes a commonsense trade policy in addition to making President Trump’s 2017 tax reforms permanent and more competitive, securing regulatory certainty, expediting permitting reform to unleash American energy dominance and key manufacturing projects and increasing the talent pool.”