Americans aren't buying into the Trump economy. And that's before things actually get bad!

We knew that this was a key week of data that would tell us if Tariff Man's policies were having an impact on prices and jobs, with the release of the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index reports for March. First came the CPI on Thursday.

It may be regarded by policymakers as a report from a different world given what has happened to tariff policy recently But the March CPI report was exceptionally cool. Headline CPI fell -0.05%, and core CPI rose just 0.06% This lowered the 12-month rate for both measures to a 4-year low

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— Nick Timiraos (@nicktimiraos.bsky.social) April 10, 2025 at 7:36 AM

Wow. Prices actually fell in March?

Kind of, as if you dig into the actual CPI report, you'll see that actual prices rose by 0.2% last month, but since it's expected that prices jump in March especially for gasoline as well as some other products, that translated into the seasonally-adjusted decline for the CPI report. And gasoline was a big reason why, as it fell 0.9% at the pump and by 6.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis.

The one item of concern was that food at home. This is also known as groceries, or as our Dear Leader calls it "a bag with different things in it", and unlike when he claimed last week, food at home went up by 0.5% in March, with eggs jumping by another 5.9% after increases of 15.2% and 10.4% in Trump's first 2 months in office. That pushed the 12-month price increase for groceries to 2.4%, which is the highest it's been since September 2023, and the 4.7% year-over-year increase in meats is the highest in 2 1/2 years.

But still, the overall CPI picture was good, and showed no sign of tariffs raising prices. What about wholesalers and other businesses? That followed with the Producer Price Index report on Friday, and it turned out that those prices dropped as well, down by 0.4% for final demand after rising 1.1% in January and 0.4% in February.

Not only was the drop in oil and gasoline prices a contributor to the drop in the PPI as well as the CPI, but food prices also went down for businesses in March, dropping by 2.1% after rising by a total of more than 5% in the 4 months prior to that.

So that should stabilize domestic food prices, although it's still up in the air as to what happens with higher taxes on imported foods and the profit-taking that domestic food businesses may take as a result of that.

But that good inflation news for March was overshadowed by what consumers thought of the turmoil Trump and the DOGE dweebs were causing, and what was going to happen from April going forward.

The University of Michigan's closely watched consumer sentiment index, released Friday, fell 11% to 50.8, the lowest since the depths of the pandemic.

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— CBS Detroit (@cbsdetroit.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 2:30 PM

Univ of Michigan 1-year Inflation expectations soared in April to 6.7% vs. 5.2% est. & 5.0% prior .. .. highest since 1981 (via Liz Ann Sonders)

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 9:09 AM

From the University of Michigan survey: Consumer expectations of future economic conditions among Republicans have dropped notably (though are above year-earlier levels). Independents are back to the low point of the Biden presidency.

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— Nick Timiraos (@nicktimiraos.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 9:33 AM

I'll remind you that "the low point of the Biden Presidency" was when year-over-year inflation was running at 9.1% and economic "experts" were saying a US recession was certain to happen in the next year (a recession that never came, by the way).

The consumer sentiment numbers underscore the real problem with the US economy, even before we officially have fallen into recession. No one with a drop of honesty is buying what TrumpWorld is trying to sell, and the White House and GOP Congress is filled with so many underqualified lackeys that won't do anything to correct the Senile King in Chief that is randomly throwing tariffs and regressive tax policies around without a hint of strategy or a clue (or a care) about how it affects everyday people.

"The U.S. is in the middle of two economic crises. One is being caused directly by tariffs. The other is a crisis of confidence being driven by a crisis of competence."

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— Justin Wolfers (@justinwolfers.bsky.social) April 10, 2025 at 5:02 PM

We'll find out next week if the tanking in consumer confidence translates and expectation of higher prices tanks the retail sales numbers for March, and guarantees a bad number for Q1 consumption. If people are clamping down because of Trumpian stupidity, then it becomes a double-whammy once the higher prices from tariffs inevitably hit in the coming months. And then the recession will likely be on for real.