Are Americans’ wallets “on strike”? From oil prices to mortgages, the pressure on ordinary households is impossible to hide

If wallets could talk, many American households might have just one thing to say lately: Stop buying. Seriously, stop buying!
This isn’t just a joke. Data released by the University of Michigan show that the U.S. Consumer Sentiment Index stood at 48.0 in October 2026, still near historic lows. What consumers care about most is how the rising cost of living keeps squeezing their purchasing power.
Imagine an ordinary household paying rent or a mortgage every month, buying groceries, covering energy costs, and also budgeting for children’s education and medical expenses. Each item might seem manageable on its own, but together they can turn the household budget into a survival obstacle course.
What’s more, people worry that prices and interest rates will keep rising. So the new phone they’d planned to buy can wait, weekend restaurant meals become home-cooked dinners, and a long-awaited trip may be postponed.
For an individual household, this is careful budgeting; for the economy as a whole, it could affect consumer demand. If businesses sell fewer goods, they may scale back expansion plans; if hiring also slows as a result, consumers’ concerns about the future could deepen further.
But low confidence alone doesn’t mean the U.S. economy has already stalled. Consumer sentiment is an early warning signal; ultimately, it needs to be assessed alongside employment, wages, prices, and actual spending data.
At the end of the day, ordinary people aren’t asking the economy to work miracles every day. They just want wages to keep up with bills and to have a little money left to enjoy life after working hard.
If even buying a cup of coffee requires a household budget meeting, life has certainly lost some of its romance.
If your cost of living keeps rising every month, would you cut back on travel, eating out, or put off big-ticket purchases?
$AAPL

‌#美国消费者信心接近历史低点