It’s the third straight month of falling consumer confidence in the economy and was well below the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 63.2.

Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu reported that declines were seen “consistently across all groups by age, education, income, wealth, political affiliations, and geographic regions.”

“Sentiment has now fallen for three consecutive months and is currently down 22% from December 2024,” it said.

Consumers expressed pessimism in the survey about inflation rates, expecting them to go higher.

One of the drivers of the plunge, Hsu’s report said, was deteriorating future expectations for the economy.

“Many consumers cited the high level of uncertainty around policy and other economic factors; frequent gyrations in economic policies make it very difficult for consumers to plan for the future, regardless of one’s policy preferences,” Hsu’s University of Michigan survey report said.

Consumers are worried about continued inflation and the stock market slump as Trump administration policy creates turbulence and uncertainty with tariffs, including against U.S. trading partners.

The University of Michigan’s survey found consumers expect inflation to go to 4.9% within a year and they expect inflation to be at 3.9% after five years.

While consumer sentiment is falling across all political affiliations, there are larger drops in sentiment among Democrats and independents.

For Dems March consumer sentiment fell 24%. For independents it fell 12%. Among Republicans it was down 10%.