During a White House small business summit, President Donald Trump said the economy is strong and his policies are satisfying Americans.
“Consumer confidence is way up,” Trump said at the May 4 event.
Three standard measurements of consumer satisfaction — from the University of Michigan; a business group called the Conference Board; and an aggregation of public polling data — show the opposite. They reveal that people are less satisfied with the economy now than at the end of President Joe Biden’s tenure, and at least one of the metrics puts consumer confidence near an all-time low.
The White House pointed to retail spending data to support his statement, but that isn’t a clear-cut measure of consumer confidence when other economic factors are at play.
University of Michigan measure is near all-time lows
Every month since 1978, University of Michigan researchers have asked Americans a series of questions to gauge their feelings about the economy. The results for the main question on consumer sentiment historically have ranged mostly between 50 and 110 on an index scale, with 112 indicating the highest confidence levels recorded.
The score for March 2026, the most recent month, was 53.3. That’s the ninth-lowest score since the survey first went monthly. Of those nine lowest marks, five have come during Trump’s second term. (Two happened during 40-year-high inflation under Biden in 2022 and two came during even higher inflation under Jimmy Carter in 1980.)
Conference Board measurement shows Trump on worse footing than Biden
The Conference Board, a nonprofit research group for member businesses, has also surveyed consumer sentiment for decades. In recent years, its ratings have ranged from about 80 to 130 on an index scale, and they have been lower during Trump’s second term than under Biden.
In Biden’s final full month in office, the rating was 109.5. In April 2026 under Trump, it was 92.8. During Biden’s final 16 months, the metric averaged 104.3. During the 16 months of Trump’s second term, it has averaged 94.6.
Polls show public approval of Trump’s economic policies is falling
One widely used aggregator of public opinion polls is compiled by Silver Bulletin, a website published by FiveThirtyEight.com founder Nate Silver.
The site does long-term tracking of presidential net approval ratings in a variety of public polls. Net approval refers to the share of respondents saying they approve minus the share saying they disapprove. A positive net approval number means the president has more approvers than disapprovers; a negative net approval number means they have more disapprovers than approvers.
During his second term, net approval for Trump’s handling of the economy has cratered. It began in positive territory when he was inaugurated in January 2025 but turned negative the next month. Since then, his net approval has continued to sink; in early May, disapproval exceeded approval by 24 percentage points.
One metric is potentially more favorable to Trump’s assertion
When we asked the White House for evidence of improving consumer confidence, spokesperson Kush Desai pointed to “the hard data of actual consumer spending and retail sales figures,” which he said “have consistently shown that American consumers are resilient and continue to spend.”
Looking at the White House’s two favored metrics — consumer spending and retail sales — presents results.
One way to measure consumer spending is using personal consumption expenditures, a federal statistic that tracks Americans’ spending patterns. We looked at this metric’s year-over-year change during the final 15 months of Biden’s presidency and the first 15 months of Trump’s second term. (We used 15 months because the data for Trump’s 16th month hasn’t been released yet.)
The data shows spending adjusted for inflation generally increased during Biden’s final 15 months but has mostly fallen since Trump’s return to the White House.
The second metric, retail sales, is more favorable to Trump. Retail sales have generally been higher during Trump’s tenure than during the latter part of Biden’s.
The year-over-year monthly change in retail sales averaged 2.47% during Biden’s final 14 months. During the first 14 months of Trump’s second term, the increase has averaged 3.75%. (Only Trump’s first 14 months are available for this statistic.)
Dean Baker, co-founder of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research, told PolitiFact that it’s valuable to look at what people do, not only how they respond to survey questions, and that would be reflected in retail sales data. However, Baker said the retail sales figure has a weakness: It is not adjusted for inflation, and the increased sales might reflect inflation from Trump’s tariffs.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum, said the personal consumption expenditures is “a more comprehensive and reliable measure of household spending.” That, combined with the consumer sentiment surveys, “is easily more important than retail sales,” he said.
Our ruling
Trump said, “Consumer confidence is way up.”
Three traditional metrics — two long-running consumer surveys and an aggregation of public opinion poll questions about the president’s handling of the economy — show that consumer confidence ranges from low to a near an all-time low. Inflation-adjusted consumer spending has also been trending downward.
Retail sales, meanwhile, have been strong during Trump’s second term, but it’s not clear whether this stems from consumer optimism; it could reflect higher prices from Trump’s tariffs.
We rate the statement False.
