Americans’ confidence in the economy fell in July as gas prices rose again after the U.S. and Iran stepped up their fighting. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index dropped to 90.8 from 92.2 in June, keeping it trapped in the same weak range it has held since the beginning of the year. In late 2024 and early 2025, the readings were well above 100. The numbers are doing what the bosses’ system always does: squeezing people from above, then asking them to call it normal.
Who Pays When Power Escalates
Consumer attitudes had improved modestly in June when gas prices fell to around $3.70 a gallon from more than $4.50 a gallon in late April and early May. Then the fighting in the Middle East escalated, and the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. rose again. On Tuesday it was $4.10, according to AAA. Ordinary people don’t get to vote on oil routes or military escalation. They just get the bill.
After being attacked by the U.S. and Israel in late February, Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil travels, causing a spike in gas prices. That accelerated inflation and caused Americans’ inflation-adjusted incomes to decline. The machinery of state violence and geopolitical muscle-flexing lands, as usual, on workers, renters, and anyone trying to keep a car running.
Americans remained sour on the economy after five years of elevated inflation, a dynamic that could pose a risk to President Donald Trump and Republicans in the midterm elections, which were less than 100 days away. The electoral calendar keeps rolling. The squeeze keeps going too.
What People Said, and What They Cut Back On
Write-in responses to the survey, collected from July 1 to July 22, remained pessimistic. The Board said references to gas prices were down slightly but remained elevated, while respondents’ mentions of food and grocery prices increased. Government data showed that buying food to bring home had gotten 33% more expensive since the beginning of 2019. Americans have turned to couponing, comparison shopping and cutting back on favorite foods as they absorb the biggest jump in grocery prices in a half-century.
Beef has become a symbol of those higher costs for many Americans. The price of a pound of ground beef reached $6.82 in June, 79% more than at the beginning of 2019, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That’s what inflation looks like from below: fewer choices, smaller meals, and a shopping list rewritten by necessity.
Trump continued to blame inflation on his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. Inflation had risen since Trump’s inauguration last year, to 3.5% from 3% in January 2025. It jumped further after the Iran war began Feb. 28, when it was 2.4%. The blame game keeps moving between rulers, but the price tags stay put.
Jobs, Trade, and the Same Old Pressure
References to jobs and unemployment picked up slightly in July and views of the current job market fell. Expectations for the labor market six months ahead improved slightly, but remained in negative territory. U.S. employers slowed hiring last month and added only 57,000 jobs, less than half the previous month’s total. The unemployment rate declined to 4.2% from 4.3% in May, though the drop mostly occurred because many people out of work gave up looking and were no longer counted as unemployed.
That detail matters. A lower unemployment rate can still hide people pushed out of the count entirely. The official numbers can look cleaner than the lives behind them.
The number of consumers who mentioned war and geopolitics decreased in July, but the Board said recent escalation in fighting between Iran and the U.S. could cause those mentions to rise in the next survey. The war machine keeps making itself felt in the grocery aisle, the gas pump, and the job market, even when the language of the survey tries to keep everything neat.
The U.S. goods trade deficit contracted less than expected in June and remained a drag on second-quarter GDP growth. Automotive vehicle exports rose 5.1% and exports of consumer goods rose 3.2%. The government was scheduled to publish the advance estimate of second-quarter GDP growth on Thursday. The state will release its next number, and the people will keep living with the consequences long before the spreadsheet catches up.