Whether it’s the “collective trauma” cited by the American Psychological Association (APA) or the bad “vibes” noted by internet analysts, there has been a clear break between the U.S. economy’s performance and public attitudes about it, according to new research from the Chicago Federal Reserve.
Researchers at the regional Fed bank studied measures of consumer and business sentiment and found a schism occurred in the spring of 2020 when the onset of the coronavirus pandemic posed mortal risk to the entire country and reordered the economy in ways that are still not fully understood.
