Courtney Brown

That only started to emerge last year.

As a primary driver of consumer sentiment.

Hector Sandoval at the University of Florida's Economic Analysis Program says that makes sense given all the headlines lately about layoffs and how companies aren't hiring.

And hearing that all the time gets in people's heads and affects how they feel about the economy.

But Sandoval says even when there's not a lot of job-related headlines... The labor market is always something very important.

How people feel about their own job security and future employment prospects is always going to play into their overall sentiment about the economy, according to Americus Reed at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

Which of those factors are front and center at any given moment varies, he says, depending on what's happening in the country.

But ultimately, how people feel about the economy is going to be most affected by how they're doing personally.

And that matters more than news headlines.

I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace.

They're not going to have higher growth, but they're going to have more predictable growth.

I also am curious and surprised by the resiliency of the American consumer.

And this isn't the only year that we're having this conversation about consumer resiliency, right?

This has been the story of the U.S.

economy for a while now.

I think what makes it the most shocking is some of the factors that you mentioned that are new to the economy this year.

Tariffs, for instance.

We've seen the consumer continue to spend

despite some tariff-related price increases.

And I think the big question for my reporting in 2026 is how much longer can this continue, especially as the labor market starts to look a little bit more rocky?