AP News70%
Americans’ confidence in US economy falls as Iran conflict sends gas prices higher 64%
By MATT OTT88%
7/28/2026, 7:10:16 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 10 faulty reasoning types, including Confirmation Bias, Negativity Bias, and Recency Bias, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 44.3% saturation with 153 hits. Analysis detected 443 faulty-reasoning hits from 345 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 52.5% and a BS Rank of 64% (9,325 of 25,563 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 63.50% of the article peer group.
Americans’ confidence in the economy fell this month as gas prices resumed their climb after the U.S. and Iran stepped up their fighting.
The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell to 90.8 in July from 92.2 in June.
That’s essentially the same tepid range its been in since the beginning of the year.
In late 2024 and early 2025 the readings were well above 100.
Consumer attitudes had improved modestly in June as gas prices came down to around $3.70 a gallon from more than $4.50 a gallon in late April and early May.
But as fighting in the Middle East escalated, the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. started to rise again.
On Tuesday it was $4.10, according to the auto club AAA.
After being attacked by the U.S. and Israel in late February, Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil travels, causing a spike in gas prices.
That accelerated inflation, causing Americans’ inflation-adjusted incomes to decline.
Government data shows that buying food to bring home has gotten 33% more expensive since the beginning of 2019.
To navigate those higher prices, Americans have turned to couponing, comparison shopping and cutting back on favorite foods as they absorb the biggest jump in grocery prices in a half-century.
Beef epitomizes out-of-control grocery prices for many Americans.
The price of a pound of ground beef reached $6.82 in June — 79% more than at the beginning of 2019, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
References to jobs and unemployment picked up slightly this month and views of the current job market fell.
Expectations of how the labor market will be six months going forward improved slightly, but remained in negative territory.
The number of consumers who mentioned war and geopolitics decreased this month, but the Board suspects that recent escalation in fighting between Iran and the U.S. could cause those mentions to rise in the next survey.
Analysis
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