As Trump 2.0 continues, US consumers keep feeling worse.

We’ve seen consumer sentiment get worse in the country as we’ve gotten deeper into 2025 and Trump Administration 2.0, and we found out on Friday that consumers were at some of their lowest points yet, just as the Holiday shopping season was set to start up.

US consumer sentiment deteriorated slightly in November as Americans fretted about high prices, weaker incomes, and mounting layoffs, nearing record lows.

That’s according to the University of Michigan’s final reading of its survey of consumers. Preliminary data released earlier this month showed plunging sentiment for November, with overall sentiment hitting 50.3 amid concerns about the effect of the government shutdown on the economy. Sentiment improved a bit after the shutdown ended Nov. 12, reaching a level of 51 — lower than October’s 53.6 and down 29% from one year ago….

What’s more, 69% of consumers now expect unemployment to rise in the year ahead, more than double the rate from this time last year. The perceived probability of losing one’s job is also worse this month and at its highest level since 2020, according to Joanne Hsu, the director of the survey of consumers.

Young people are feeling especially dire. For Americans aged 18 to 34, expectations for losing one’s job in the next five years hit the highest level since 2012.

Remember last year, when low-info voters thought "businessman Trump" would get us back to the economy of 2019? Right now, I think a lot of those people would accept going back to the economy of 2024 at this point.

But we also saw a September jobs number on Thursday that showed surprising growth, and inflation continues to run at around 3%. So while consumer sentiment in the country is awful, Fed officials are clearly cross-pressured when it comes to deciding whether they should contiunue to cut interest rates. Which brings added attention to any hints a Fed official may give on next month's meeting, such as we saw on Friday.

Odds for another interest rate cut jumped Friday after New York Fed president John Williams signaled he could support a cut when the central bank meets in December.

“I still see room for a further adjustment in the near term to the target range for the federal funds rate to move the stance of policy closer to the range of neutral,” Williams said in a speech in Chile.

Though he still sees room to cut, Williams said he believes tariffs have temporarily stalled progress toward the Fed’s 2% inflation goal. He estimates tariffs are contributing a half a percentage point to three-quarters of a percentage point to inflation. He expects that inflation will come back down over the next year.

Williams' comments carry added weight because he is the vice chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee and one of what’s unofficially known as the “troika,” the group of leaders at the Fed, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell and vice chair Philip Jefferson.

And after a sizable drop in the markets over the previous 10 days, that was all Wall Street traders needed to hear in order to buy back in on Friday.

US equities had perked up early Friday after the New York Fed president John Williams said he sees room for a cut in the "near term." That led rate-cut bets for the Fed's next meeting to spike, with traders pricing in 75% odds of a December cut, up from around 40% on Thursday. Williams' remarks come amid evidence of a deeply divided Fed heading into its final meeting of 2025.

While stocks have seesawed, cryptocurrencies are feeling even greater heat — signs that the risk-off mood still haunts markets. Bitcoin sank on Friday to trade as low as $82,000, deepening a slide from record-high levels just more than a month ago. It is now heading for its worst month since the crypto collapse of 2022.

Doesn’t that sum things up well? That the only way for the stock market to go up is to be either gamble on unfulfilled projections of AI growth or hopes that the economy is bad enough that rate cuts continue? Not really what you want in the real world.

We still have yet to have information regarding overall retail sales for the US in September and October, which would indicate whether that negative consumer sentiment has translated into lower consumer activity. But it sure seems like there are plenty of headwinds in people’s minds and in their pocketbooks to keep Q4 from having much (if any) growth, and that’s before the large amount of announced layoffs start to translate into lost jobs and incomes.