"It's pretty clear politics was a big part of it," says Ben Harris, vice president and director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Following Trump's recent win, Republican sentiment soared, illustrating the political divide influencing economic perceptions.
"If an economic forecaster were trapped on a desert island with only data on consumer confidence, using this measure to hazard a guess about the economy 'would not be a bad idea,'" concludes an explainer from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis published in 2003, highlighting its predictive power.
"The fact that macroeconomic indicators have become so divorced from consumer sentiment, it's reasonable to ask does this even matter from an economic standpoint anymore?" questions Brookings' Harris, emphasizing the growing gap between feelings and facts.
While overall consumer sentiment turned positive post-Trump's win, Democratic sentiment declined slightly, showing how deeply politics can influence economic outlooks across party lines.
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