His feelings
were correctly placed. There was a vibecession last year when consumer sentiment was lower than it had been during the 2008 recession. This was in spite of low unemployment, high growth, high wage growth, low inflation and reasonable gas prices.
The reason behind the low consumer sentiment wasn't a flaw in BLS methodology, no one seriously questions any of the stats I mentioned. Rather, it's that the effect of a couple of years of high inflation continued to weigh on consumers. 6 months of low inflation didn't reverse previous price increases, nor did they forget what prices used to be.
And yet, it's fundamental human nature to adapt to circumstances. Consumer sentiment has actually increased substantially in the last 3 months. Source: American consumers are finally cheering up (The Economist - https://archive.is/vJ7gf).
> The rate of improvement is especially striking. The 30% increase since November marks the survey’s biggest rise over any three-month period in more than three decades. The level remains glum by historical standards: about 15% below its average in the five years before the covid-19 pandemic.
In summary, the BLS' methodology to calculate economic indicators is fine. And assuming those indicators continue their trend, it's likely that consumer sentiment will continue to recover.
You also claim that
> Americans have stopped saving and gone so deeply in debt
Except this isn't true? According to surveys conducted by the Federal Reserve (https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf23.pdf Page 30), consumer debt has gone down steadily from 2010 to 2022.
At this point, I got to ask - what is your source for facts?
