Consumer Pulse (March 20, 2026): Increased Concerns Over Inflation, Gas Prices and AI

A lot has happened during the first 10 weeks of 2026, from unpredictable trade policy and bad jobs numbers to military action and spiking gas prices. From an economic point of view, the numbers have been mixed: a record high stock market in February; increases in both personal income and expenditures in January; the Consumer Confidence Index falling 9.7 points in January. Now, midway through March, consumer sentiment has fallen again, hitting its lowest point of the year.

Consumers have had a lot to react to and a lot to say. At Material, we’ve been listening and hearing some noteworthy shifts in what consumers are saying about the economy – as well as how often they’re discussing the economy.

Overall household economic conversations are down 5.4% vs. 2025, but, revealing a strange tension, online chatter reveals that both economic confidence and uncertainty are up (around 7% YoY). This suggests that while consumers aren’t panicking about the economy in the way they did in the Spring of 2025, they’re resigned about its near-term prospects.

Here’s a taste of what we learned from the latest Online Anthropology data.

Key findings

Budgeting continues to rise – Budgeting conversations from January through mid-March made up a 19.5% higher share of economic conversations than the same period in 2025. These last ten weeks are also the highest 10-week stretch of budgeting conversations in our 3+ years of data.

Inflation concerns are making a comeback – After declining in six of the last seven months, conversations around inflation are on the rise again. In March, we’re seeing 12.4% growth in inflation conversations month-over-month.

Gasoline prices are fueling more chatter – Conversations about gas prices accounted for 7.9% of household discussions about the economy. This is a 109% increase over the 12-month average. The previous high was 4.8% in December 2023, making this a huge jump. As gas prices have a significant impact on both household budgeting conversations and inflation worries, the full effects of this surge are likely just beginning to be felt.

Tariff worries are down – Tariff conversations are down 82% vs. March 2025. The share of tariff conversations has declined in 7 of the last 8 months – the only exception being a brief spike in conversation volume in February when the Supreme Court ruled some of the administration’s tariffs unconstitutional.

AI is a growing source of conversation and concern – The new source of uncertainty shaking consumer confidence and increasing uncertainty is artificial intelligence. AI is a topic in 3.6x more household economic conversations over the first 10 weeks of 2026 vs. the same period in 2025 – and 7.8x more vs. 2024. 71% of AI conversations reference the labor market. This percentage is consistent over time, but the increased number of conversations shows that consumers are more aware of AI’s potential impacts and have replaced their tariff concerns over worries about AI’s effect on the economy.

This is understandable, given much of the public discourse around AI. With two primary narratives being AI could fail (it’s a bubble that might tank the economy) and AI could succeed (and take a huge number of jobs), consumers are left with no positive outcome to root for. The sense of this being in a “no-win” scenario for consumers is likely contributing to the current sense of resignation reflected in our data. There’s less immediate panic than we saw during 2025’s tariff rollouts, yet no clear confidence or certainty.

What’s next?

These conversations are the tip of the iceberg. By drilling into specific sectors, topics, categories and trends, brands can better engage with and serve consumers during times of uncertainty.

Material’s proprietary social listening solution, Online Anthropology, and other quick-turn research methods like Material Spotlight, can help you get fast, data-rich, insightful snapshots of what consumers are talking about right now, and why.

To learn how Material can help you uncover consumers’ concerns, hopes, preferences and needs quickly enough to act on them, reach out today.

Methodology

These findings are based on an Online Anthropology™ analysis of 27 million publicly available, naturally occurring consumer messages posted between January 1, 2023 and March 15, 2026, from 5,467,903 people, about their household economic situations. The dataset includes dozens of sub-Reddits, Facebook posts and comments and hundreds of finance-focused forums and message boards like moneysavingexpert.com, mrmoneymustache.com, bogleheads.org, zerohedge.com, redflagdeals.com and more.