When consumers see the world through Republican or Democrat lenses,

I'm David Brancatia, we get a fresh reading on consumer sentiment in just a bit.

This will be from the University of Michigan survey.

Feelings about the economy have been on average middling people like the job market but not the

rising prices. But there's another aspect that is worth scrutiny in these times.

Consumer sentiment can be partisan.

The University of Michigan survey, for instance, in there there's sometimes a 40 point gap between how Democrats or Republicans feel about the economy,

Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman reports.

The partisan divide in sentiment has been growing since the early 2010s, says Chris Jackson at

polling firm IPSOS. When their political opponents hold the White House,

Republicans say the economy is much worse than Democrats do, even at similar income or education levels.

Same for Democrats, they got much more bummed out after losing the 2016 election. Sentiment flipped again in 2020 and this year

says John Lear at Morning Consul... If Democrats were to lose the White House I

would expect to see Republicans become much more

optimistic about the economy. Now Lear insists consumer sentiment measures

are still valid because Republicans and Democrats respond to big economic events similarly,

becoming more pessimistic after a stock market shock or spike in inflation, for instance.

And independence, they tend to split right down the middle, pretty close to the average

sentiment level for Americans overall.

I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.

There's news wholesale prices in America were up two-tenths of a percent in June.

How does that fit into the emerging picture of a U.S. economy that has gone from hot to not so hot.

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