Marketplace - Consumer mood sours

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

On the whole, consumers are feeling 20% worse about the economy than they were a year ago, according to the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. High prices were cited as one concern, but that’s been a pain point for years. So what’s new? Also in this episode: Uncertainty in the tech sector drums up investor interest in consumer staples, the federal government yanked over 3,000 data sets from public sites under President Trump, and a dancer-educator discusses the business of ballet.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

Yes, it's true. Stocks do go up as well, gang. We will talk about that and the week it was from American Public Media. This is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdahl. It is Friday, today, Friday. Friday, this one is the 6th of February. Good is always to have you along, everybody.

Let us state right here at the outset that even if one were inclined to believe that the stock market is the economy, two days trading is a very small data set on which to base your analysis. And in point of fact, one might do better taking, oh, say the past five days in our collective economic lives as a guide. So that is what we are going to do. Courtney Browns at Axios, Heather Long is the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. Hey, you two. Hi, Kai. Hey, Kai.

Heather Long, let me begin with you. And I will acknowledge here that none of the three of us are market analysts in any way, shape, or form. but as a way to get onto the equity markets in a roundabout way, could you discuss for me, please, the fundamentals of this economy right now? What do you think? Well, you're right. There's two big factors at play. Number one is the one we always talk about, and that's what's the consumer doing.

And that's where you see the K-shaped economy with the top 20% really driving the spending growth right now and everybody else kind of hanging on or treading water. And then the other big one is the AI economy. And it was just staggering this week as all these big tech companies said they're going to invest $600 billion in AI this year, which is greater than the budget that the entire Japanese government or German government spends on their countries. I mean, that's how mind-bogglingly large this is. And so I think you're right. You look at these equity markets and you almost want a reality check. I mean, nobody wants these stocks go down. but you sort of say, we need a breather here.

You know, people need to look around and just sense check a little. Courtney, you and your colleague, Neil Irwin, wrote about the whole AI spending thing this week. It is an insane amount of money. How can it possibly be sustainable? That's the big question. I think we, as reporters who are very interested in the economy, we see these announcements and we're thinking about how is this going to filter through? to the economy? Is it big enough to boost GDP numbers? And these numbers, as Heather said,

are quite large. I think the question is, do we continue to see this wild disconnect between like pretty healthy GDP numbers helped by some of those capital expenditures from AI firms against this kind of dismal backdrop of the labor market that's just been frozen, you know, low higher, low fire? Does the high GDP numbers, number translate into a boost for the labor market? I mean, that's the big question. It is indeed. Heather, you know, I don't know if you saw Mary Daley, the president of the San Francisco Fed has come out in the last, I don't know, actually, if it was this morning yesterday, but basically said, you know, we're in low hire, low fire, and she's worried about sort of a

no higher economy. This labor market, I mean, ADP this week, 22,000 jobs way low. The jolts was kind of mad. The indicators on the labor market. market are not great. They're not. I've been calling it a hiring recession. It's very clear that there's no hiring going on outside of health care. And you're right, what was telling to me this week was seeing the big decline in job opening. So not only have companies not been hiring, now they're not even thinking about hiring. They're not even putting the pretend job opening up on the labor market website anymore. And in particular, the big pullbacks in those job listings were professional and business finances, finance, which is an interesting one. And then health care, right? So health care, the one big

driver of job, any hiring that has been happening, has even seen a pullback. I will say this is frustrating. This is a jobless boom, strong GDP, no hiring, hiring recession. But I do see that it's not getting worse. I expect when we finally get that government jobs data next week that we'll see something that doesn't feel great, but it's not getting worse. Not getting worse is kind of a low bar there, Courtney Brown. I know. To play devil's advocate, I think the question is, is it getting better? Maybe it's not getting worse.

Is it just staying in kind of that frozen position that we've been in for the last couple years? Or is there signs of improvement? are companies opening the spigot? I mean, it just, it doesn't look like it. It looks like we're still stuck. And that's frustrating if you don't have a job and you want one. Or if you have a job and you want to leave it and maybe make some more money elsewhere,

you're just stuck. Courtney, let me stay with you for a second, not to continue the gloom and doom parade, but you and Neil wrote this week about tariffs and how companies are kind of sick and tired of accepting all the pass-through, right, and keeping consumers out of it as much as they possibly can. And that might be yet another thing that's going to, number one, make inflation stickier, and number two, make consumers crankier. Yeah, Neil and I, I think, in our macro newsletter, we were a little gloomy this week. But that's only because we got some indicators that price growth was a little hot in January.

And historically, January can be a hot-ish month for inflation. but even hotter than usual by some measures. We get CPI next week, of course, the consumer price index. But I think the big story here is, is companies that were holding the line on prices in 2025, are they finally at the point where they're just saying, I can't hold the line anymore? I need to pass some of this cost on to consumers. And January is an ideal month to do that because that's when companies usually reassess their pricing strategies.

And we don't even have a decision on whether the bulk of Trump, tariffs are legal yet. The Supreme Court still has to rule on that. And so I think we're going to see a much more movement, perhaps, perhaps, on the inflation front and the higher prices front with respective tariffs. Heather, let me pick up with you, and this will be the last 45 seconds of our chat this afternoon, and the thing you said about it not getting worse. Talk to me about the first half, say, of this year, both unemployment and then general economic activity. What do you think? Well, I think the key thing here is all the stimulus coming. I mean, look, these tax rebates that are going to be larger, yes, the average of about $600 more into the pockets of most Americans. And that's going to

keep things afloat. That's going to keep that treading water feeling for the bottom 80% of the K-shaped economy going. That doesn't mean you feel great, but it's enough to keep people from totally falling under the water. And so that's where I think things, when then all this AI investment continues to pump into the economy. Hopefully we get that Supreme Court ruling on the tariffs that Courtney was talking about. That would sure inject a little bit more, I don't know, certainty or clarity is the right word, but at least we'd have something to go off of. And so that's where, but yeah, it's not getting worse and we're hanging on to something, right? That's where we are. I think to sum it up, it's a jobless boom and the middle class is frustrated.

Yeah, yeah. Heather Long at Navy Federal Credit Union, Courtney Brown at Axis. Thanks, you too. Thanks, Guy. Wall Street on this Friday after yesterday, traders were, believe you, me, buying the dip. Stock, crypto, you name it, details numbers when we get there. All right, so let's continue with that thread that Heather was pulling there up at the top of our little conversation. the American consumer, how we're feeling, and the short answer is not so great about the economy right now.

The latest sentiment data out today, in fact, from the University of Michigan shows our mood has improved slightly, so slightly, in fact, that you might as well call it unchanged from the last reading. And if you pull back just a little bit, you'll also see we're all feeling 20% worse about the economy than we were a year ago. Marketplace's Samantha Fields has more on that. At this particular moment in time, people are thinking most. most about kitchen table issues. Their top two concerns are the persistence of high prices as well as weakening labor markets. Joanne Schu, who runs the surveys of consumers at the University of Michigan, says people are more worried now about the possibility of losing their job than they have been

since the early months of the pandemic in 2020. The pain of high prices, that's something that has been cited by consumers for the last four years. But when it comes to the labor market, that's actually relatively new. That only started to emerge last year. as a primary driver of consumer sentiment. Hector Sandoval at the University of Florida's Economic Analysis Program says that makes sense, given all the headlines lately, about layoffs and how companies aren't hiring.

You hear all these news, like it's hard to find a new job, like job openings is low. And then, I mean, yeah, there's low fire, low hire. And hearing that all the time gets in people's heads and affects how they feel about the economy. But Sandoval says even when there's not a lot of job-related headlines, The labor market is always something very important. The job is, I think that's something that it's always on the consumer minds. How people feel about their own job security and future employment prospects is always going to play into their overall sentiment about the economy,

according to Americus Reed at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. There's a collection of pillars that are sort of the basis of life. The job market, prices, affordability, how am I doing with my business? Bills. Which of those factors are front and center at any given moment varies, he says, depending on what's happening in the country. But ultimately, how people feel about the economy is going to be most affected by how they're doing personally. So if you say, well, the stock market is up and you know, this is that, and no gas prices are down and this is dead, blah, blah, blah, blah, things are going great. That's not going to land on me because I know what I'm

experiencing inside of my own body. And that matters more than news headlines. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace. Whether your personal consumer sentiment about this economy is gloomy or cheery, there are some things you just got to buy. Toothpaste, food, laundry detergent, the very broad category of goods called Consumer Staples. And shares of companies in that got-a-buy sector are doing quite well right now. Thank you very much. The S&P Consumer Staples Index up a bit more than 5% this week. Money is flowing in there, even as it's flowing out of technology companies.

Marketplace's Nova Saffo has more now and why investors are opting for the basics. Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and META just said they're spending $600 billion on AI infrastructure this year. And investors are wondering how that's going to affect profits. There were some over-optimistic expectations for the AI sector. Harul Jane is Professor of Economics and Finance at Rutgers. So there has been a little bit of a market route. So it's basically the run-up and then the rundown that we're looking at. And it's not only tech companies spending that's worrying investors.

There are new concerns about whether AI could replace entire parts of the tech economy, like the need to buy new software when you could just ask AI to handle it. This is all leading to, say it with me, uncertainty. So now the question is that where is the money going to go? Consumer staples, they offer stability. Andrew Rocco is a stock strategist at Zach's investment research. Companies like a Procter & Gamble, a Walmart, a PepsiCo, they're going to have more stable growth. They're not going to have higher growth, but they're going to have more predictable growth.

Reliable, not flashy, the Toyotas of the investment world. Aaron Lash of Morningstar says these stocks have been relatively cheap. This recent uptick that we have seen over the past few days has been coming off of for a number of these names, some more depressed trading levels. As investors opted for the Ferraris of the stock market. The future may be looking brighter, though, for consumer staples. For one, analysts say last year's tax cuts should show up as bigger returns this year, boosting consumer spending. Robert Moscow is at TD Cowen.

When consumers go to the grocery store and they're filling up their grocery cart, it might make them feel a little more comfortable adding an extra item or paying a premium for a premium. brand, which makes stocks tied to consumer staples even more attractive right now to spooked investors. I'm Nova Saffo for Marketplace. Coming up. And even on the admin side, no, it's not fun work, but this is my baby. Love what you do. You won't work a day in your life. First, though, let's do the numbers. Dow Industrial shot up 1,206 points today. Two and a half percent closed at a record 50,115. The NASDAQ added 490 points, 2 and 2 tenths percent, 231.

The S&P 500, up 133 points, almost 2%. Ended things at 69 and 32. For the week, a bit more subdued. The Dow rose 2.5%. The NASDAQ down 1.8%. The S&P 500 dipped about one-tenth of 1%. Oval was just talking about how we all need consumer staples. Procter & Gamble, maker of toothpaste, deodorant, cleaning supplies, you name it.

Increased 4 tenths percent. Colgate palm olive lost about a half percent. Walmart up three and a third percent on the day. Once Upon a Farm debuted on the stock market today. The organic food company started by actress Jennifer Gardner sells baby food pouches, snack bars, frozen foods, ticker symbol, O-F-R-M. Once Upon a Farm, I mean, I get it, but it's not a really good one. Jumped 16 and 9, 10th percent today. You're listening to Marketplace.

This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Risdahl. We talk a lot about government economic data on this program. It's a way for us and for everybody, really, to understand. what's going on out there. But this economy is not the only thing that Washington measures. You name it, pretty much the government tracks it, or has tracked it. The Trump White House has decided that maybe we don't really need to know quite as much about ourselves and has been quietly and not so quietly disappearing and or burying government data, economic, and otherwise.

Schiffordiak wrote about that the other day for notice. That's news of the United States. Welcome to the program. Thanks so much for having me, Kai. How did you all come on to this story? Yeah, absolutely. So we had been getting a few tips from different folks working in various policy sectors, whether research on maternal mortality, research on food insecurity and hunger and so forth, talking about how a lot of the data that they relied on to do their jobs was suddenly missing

or they had limited public access to it. And so we started to get the sense that this was kind of a trend spread across the federal government. And so what we really wanted to do was try and quantify it. And what we found was that it was a lot more wide-ranging than we thought. The Trump administration, since taking office, has really made sweeping changes to federal government data, and it has reverberated through basically every sector of public life, as I mentioned. Give me a couple of, for instances. Yeah.

So one of the first things that we kind of caught wind of was data on maternal mortality. It's a CDC database called Prams that has been kind of the foundation of maternal mortality research and infant mortality research for a number of years now. The CDC doing reductions in force this past year laid off essentially the entire team that maintained Prams data in April. And so collection of that data seized for quite a few months. It's since gotten back up and running, but a lot of the folks we talked to told us how the delays in this data really affected their work and will continue to do so for a number

of months. And so it's reverberated to state health departments essentially across the country as well. Seems to me there's a there's a Rumsfeldian aspect of this, which is to say there are a lot of unknown unknowns. The data is disappearing. We don't know necessarily what the data is and why it has disappeared. That's right. A few of our sources told us that up to 3,000 data sets could be affected. Our story was only able to really look at a fraction of these downstream effects. And because of the changes in staffing that are kind of gradually coming back online, we won't be able to see the true impact of a lot of these changes until maybe even a few months or

years down the line. Not to get Alpreder driving. on you here, the management guru, and this, of course, is an apocryphal quote, but he famously said, you can't manage what you don't measure. What's being lost in all this data about this economy, this society, and our body politic? That's a good question. Number one is really just a lot of institutional knowledge about all of these topics and why they're so foundational to successful policy interventions in our country. Number two is just kind of the wealth of information, as I've been saying, that allows people to measure the impacts of their policymaking. Effectively, every population has relied on federal data in some way or another. And so, you know,

without it, there are just a lot of gaps in measuring the food systems in our country and the mental health systems in our country and the public health systems in our country and really everything else in between. You know, it's interesting you mention every population because, and I'm going to take you back to when the president was lying and saying that the Bureau of Labor Statistics was manipulating data to make him look bad. And then there was a government shutdown. We didn't have the data and all sorts of questions about that. We said in the business press, you know, American labor data and economic data has been the gold standard and so far still is used internationally. Same thing with a lot of the other data that the American government produces, right?

That's right. USAID is a really good example of this. One of the things we saw with Doge's kind of calling of USAID and the Trump administration's calling of USAID was that a lot of the data that USA had produced for the federal government, especially on global health and public health, was really a gold standard for researchers around the globe. And we're now seeing them move away from that as part of a broader move away from relying on American science as well. One doesn't imagine that this will stop, right? There are three more years left in this administration. There's three more years left. And like I said, a lot of the effects are really only going to come to light a few months down the road. And so even beyond the Trump administration,

regardless of what comes next, we're still going to be seeing kind of a lot of the reverberating effects of the policy gaps that this has caused. Schifford Dyck, she's at notice. Schiffa, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time. Yeah, thanks so much, Kai. I appreciate it. While data is disappearing, as Schiffa Dyck was just saying,

not all of it is gone quite yet. To wit, the job openings report we got yesterday. From November to December of 2025, job openings in the arts, entertainment, and recreation sector fell by 18,000. The performing arts is, of course, challenging industry in which to get started and maybe a tougher industry in which to run a business. Here's today's installment of our series, My Economy.

My name is Joe Gonzalez. I am currently living a little bit of both Massachusetts and New York. I am co-founder and executive artistic director of my own company called Joe May Dance Theater, as well as a performing artist and associate artistic director of Complexion's Contemporary. ballet in New York City. My first dance class, I was 11 years old. My mom saw me dancing around the house. And, you know, at the time when she did sign me up, I was actually mad at her.

I was like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to dance. But once I got there, the first day instantly was fell in love. This is what I'm supposed to do. This is where I'm supposed to be. But back then, you know, we couldn't afford the $1,000 a month ballet classes that were offered. And so the director there was like, we can work with you, whatever you have.

With my business partner, 2011 is when we founded our company. I was a senior in college. So we used to teach around all over Boston, like different studios, different community centers. And we found ourselves just like seeing a lot of talent out there. And like, you know, most of these kids, they come from not well families or not financially stable or How can we make this happen? When I tell you at the beginning, we just did it basically from a shoe string and, and like, a dime. And it is not fun doing taxes and accounting and bookings and contracts.

Learned all of that. It was tricky. And it's still a fight to finance. But back then it was, yeah, we made partnerships with the YMCA for free. And it was like, we'll teach your classes if you give us space to, like, work with these kids. and we was doing that for almost 10 years. I dance with a company in New York, and it's a full-time job, full, full, full-time. We are on the road about 80% of the year, like, touring and performing.

We do six days a week, eight hours a day, and so I'll have, I'm going to do air quotes Sunday off, and then in the evening I am working from, for about five hours, on my admin side of my personal company. So I try to find my moments of breathing, but I look forward to doing it. And even on the admin side, no, it's not fun work, but this is my baby. You know, so it's like you really do have a lot of care for it

and you find the energy to keep going. Joe Gonzalez, he's the Associate Artistic Director at Complexions Contemporary Ballet in New York City, also the co-founder of the Joe May Dance Theater up in Boston. Whatever your passion, whatever your business, we want to hear your story. So tell us about it, would you? Marketplace.org slash my economy. This final note on the way out today in which, honestly, I'd have thought it would be more.

I saw this in the Financial Times today, data from the United Nations, showing that international tourism to the United States last year fell 4.2%. see me after class if you need an explanation. Not coincidentally, the U.N. says tourism and international travel globally was up 4%. That is, lots of people traveling, going places other than here. Our theme music was composed by B.J. Leaderman. Marketplace's executive producer is Nancy Fargolly. Joanne Griffith is the chief content officer.

Neil Scarborough is the vice president and general manager. And I'm Kai Rizdahl. Have yourselves a great weekend, everybody. We will see again on Monday, all right? This is APM. Have you ever kept a financial secret from a partner? I'm Rima Grace, and this week on This Is Uncomfortable, I sit down with a divorce lawyer who shares some pretty extreme cases of financial secrecy.

They had a forensic account, went through the numbers, and they calculated that he spent $250,000 in a year on strip clubs. And I also chat with a couples counselor about how financial issues in a relationship are often really about trust and power. I find that a lot of dudes typically are like I know how to spend the money the right way. I should be the one that has all the control over it and you with your girl brain don't understand. Listen to This is Uncomfortable on your favorite podcast app.