Survey of Consumer Expectations, August 2026

… <p>NEW YORK—The Federal Reserve Bank of New York&rsquo;s Center for Microeconomic Data today released the August 2026 <a href="/microeconomics/sce"><em>Survey of Consumer Expectations</em></a>, which shows that households&rsquo; inflation expectations decreased slightly at the medium-term horizon and remained unchanged at the short- and longer-term horizons. Gas price growth expectations increased again in August. Labor market expectations were mixed with unemployment and job finding expectations deteriorating while job loss and quit expectations improved somewhat. Expectations of an increase in unemployment reached the highest level since April 2020. The survey was fielded from August 3 through August 31, 2026.</p> <p>The main findings from the August 2026 Survey are:</p> <p><strong>Inflation</strong></p> <ul> <li>Median inflation expectations at the one-year and five-year-ahead horizons were unchanged at 3.6% and 3.0%, while they decreased at the three-year-ahead horizon by 0.1 percentage point to 3.2%. The survey&rsquo;s measure of disagreement across respondents (the difference between the 75th and 25th percentiles of inflation expectations) decreased at the one-year-ahead horizon and increased at the three-year and five-year-ahead horizons.</li> …