Consumer Confidence Sinks to the Lowest Level Since April 2014 as JOLTS Shows a Labor Market That Won't Budge

Tuesday morning brought two economic releases and two different stories: consumers have never felt worse since April 2014, while the labor market barely moved at all.

The miss was the message

At 10:00 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, the Conference Board said its consumer confidence index fell 6.7 points to 81.9 in September, down from 88.6 in August — and that prior month itself was revised down from the 89.4 originally reported. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a reading of 89.2; the Wall Street Journal's survey pegged expectations at 89. The actual number was not close to either. It was the lowest reading in the board's survey since April 2014, and below the worst readings of the pandemic.

The survey ran September 1 through 23, a window that captured a Federal Reserve rate hike and a fresh spike in fuel prices. Dana Peterson, the Conference Board's chief economist, said it plainly: “The Consumer Confidence Index deteriorated notably in September, following two prior months of softening.”

Inside the numbers

The deterioration was broad. The Present Situation index — how consumers assess current business and labor conditions — retreated 7.9 points to 109.3. The Expectations index, which tracks the short-term outlook for income, business and labor conditions, fell 5.9 points to 63.6, its third straight monthly decline.

Consumer appraisals of current business conditions turned negative for the first time since September 2024, Peterson said, while the labor-market picture worsened but stayed positive. The labor-market differential — the share of consumers saying jobs are “plentiful” minus the share saying jobs are “hard to get” — fell 2.5 points to just 1.7%, a gap so thin it barely counts as a gap at all.

The inflation signals kept flashing. Average 12-month inflation expectations rose to 6.1%, and the share of consumers expecting higher interest rates over the next year jumped 5.2 points to 68.4%.

Peterson's summary of the write-in responses was the bleakest part of the release: “Consumers' write-in responses regarding factors affecting the economy were mostly pessimistic in September. References to prices, the high cost of goods and services, and oil and gas prices in particular, rose to new heights, reflecting September's surge in fuel costs.”

The felt economy vs. the measured one

There is a split running through this morning's data. Consumers increasingly describe a labor market that is hard to break into; the government's data says it is also hard to be pushed out of.

That split is the honest framing of the morning. Economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics attributed the latest confidence hit to the renewed pressure on households from gasoline and fuel costs, and average pump prices — about $4.46 a gallon for regular, per the latest national average reported Tuesday — are a plausible culprit for the souring.

Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial, drew the line from mood to spending: “Americans feel jobs are more scarce and are pulling back on plans for homes, cars, and big-ticket purchases, emitting a warning sign for holiday spending even though layoffs data show employers aren't yet cutting workers to match the gloom.”

JOLTS: the frozen labor market

The morning's second release, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' August Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, showed demand for workers cooling but employers firmly holding on to the ones they have. Job openings fell by 256,000 to 7.079 million on the last day of August, below the 7.225 million economists expected. July's figure was revised up to 7.335 million, and the openings rate slipped to 4.3% from 4.4%.

Everything else barely moved. Hiring actually ticked up — 5.192 million in August, up 46,000 — even as openings fell, and total separations were unchanged at 5.1 million. The quits rate held at 1.9%, a multi-year low: workers are not quitting, because in a weak-hiring environment they are afraid they cannot find the next job. Layoffs and discharges fell 61,000 to 1.641 million, the lowest layoff count since March 2025, with the layoff rate at just 1.0%.

Cory Stahle, a senior economist at the job-listings site Indeed, called the tone of it: “Another JOLTS report headlined by 'little change' does not inspire much confidence that the dynamism needed to meaningfully improve the overall employment picture will materialize any time soon.” Nancy Vanden Houten of Oxford Economics put it more directly: “Given the weak pace of hiring, workers are reluctant to leave their current jobs.”

This is the split-screen economy: the people are frightened, the payrolls are fine.

The October Fed is watching prices, not moods

What matters for the bond market is which half of this morning's data the Federal Reserve takes seriously. The answer is almost certainly the price half. The Fed raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point earlier this month to a range of 3.75% to 4.00% — its first increase in three years — and markets are pricing a roughly 70% chance of another increase at the October 28 decision.

Core personal-consumption-expenditures data lands Wednesday and is expected to remain above the central bank's target, keeping the inflation pressure on the table. August consumer prices ran 3.4% over the prior year, and average hourly wages rose 3.1% — the weakest year-over-year pay growth since May 2021, which is why rising prices hurt this badly.

Both releases landed at 10:00 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and they landed on a bond market that has already made up its mind about where rates are going: the 10-year Treasury yield sat at 5.24%–5.26% on Tuesday, near its highest since 2007. Stocks were unmoved — the S&P 500 held near Monday's 7,683.69 close — and the dollar sat at a two-month high around 101.4. Gold, which plunged about 4% on Monday to roughly $4,111, its lowest in seven to eight weeks, rebounded to about $4,124–$4,185 on Tuesday per multiple market-data reads. Crude eased after briefly topping $100 on Monday, which is the only thing about fuel prices pointing in consumers' favor.

What decides the rest of the week

Two more data points will settle whether this morning's confidence collapse is a warning or an overreaction. Wednesday's inflation read will tell the Fed whether price pressure is still running hot enough to justify another hike — and the September jobs report, due Friday, October 2, will show whether the labor market's freeze is starting to crack. August's 162,000 payroll gain was the strongest in five months; economists expect September to slow to around 90,000, with unemployment holding at 4.1%.

If hiring holds and prices cool, today's confidence number will read as a fuel-price tantrum. If not, the thin 1.7% labor differential and the weakest expectations reading in over a year will look like the leading edge of something real. The midterm elections, a little more than a month out, are already pricing in whichever answer arrives.