Tracker
Consumer Sentiment
How households feel about the economy, by survey.
49.8
Index 1966:Q1=100 · latest, Apr 2026
Source: FRED · UMCSENT · series · Jan 1978 to Apr 2026
· latest-revised
Reading it. Survey-based. How households feel, which can diverge from the hard data.
About the bands. Shaded spans are NBER-dated US recessions, drawn as factual overlays. They mark when the economy contracted, not why. Lining an event or policy up with a move on this chart is not evidence that it caused the move.