Hope everyone had a delightful holiday weekend! I spent the semiquincentennial (Happy 250th, USA!) in New Jersey, celebrating in the most American ways I know how: grilling and swimming and watching other people blow stuff up. ICYMI last week, “Marketplace Morning Report” host Kimberly Adams chronicled the major economic milestones in our nation’s economic history, broken down by each semicentennial (that’s every 50 years). 

But for today’s newsletter, we’re starting with a funky disconnect that appeared a little over a quinquennial ago (that’s 5 years). Consumers’ feelings about the economy used to line up with how they spent, but a divergence began to appear during the COVID-19 pandemic. So perhaps it’s time for a new way to do the numbers? — Dylan Miettinen, digital producer

Economists — and “Marketplace” listeners — know that consumer spending drives around two-thirds of the economy. And historically, there has been a pretty close relationship between sentiment or confidence and consumer spending.

But that relationship weakened significantly at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and hasn’t fully recovered in the six years since. Scott Brave, senior economist and economic advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, published a Fed letter on this change.

Consider the two primary ways to keep track of how Americans are feeling about the economy: the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers and The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index. Since the pandemic, consumers have been feeling pretty consistently negative about the economy. The most recent Michigan consumer sentiment index was up from an all-time low in May, but still pretty negative due to the Iran war and oil prices.

“If I were to put those low levels of consumer confidence or sentiment into a model, the model will tell me, ‘Oh my god, consumer spending is going to be, like, down below the earth,’” said Ernie Tedeschi, chief economist at Stripe.

But consumer spending is mostly fine. It was actually up almost 1% in May, the same month that consumer sentiment reached that all-time low.

So what’s driving the gap between how consumers feel and how they’re spending? Theory No. 1 is vibes.

“Really what’s going on, I think, is inflation, high prices, affordability, however you want to put it,” said Tedeschi.

Remember: Inflation as measured by the consumer price index hit 9% in June 2022. That’s the largest annual increase since the 1980s.

“Consumers have memories, so even as growth in prices has gotten better, they go to the grocery store and see persistently high levels of eggs, produce, whatever,” Tedeschi said. “And that is keeping their attitudes weak and low over this whole time.”

Gamers rejoice! After more than a decade of waiting, pre-orders for the next installment of Grand Theft Auto began recently, with an official release date slated for November. One report finds that GTA VI clocked a whopping $1 billion in pre-order sales in its first hour alone.

There was something so novel to a seven-year-old me about how well a perfectly round Lunchable slice of ham could fit atop its cracker mate. It’s like they were made for each other! (They were.) Lovingly add a teeny slice of cheese with my teeny hands, finish it off with another cracker, and — wow! — I had become an artisan sandwich maker. 

Welp, turns out that swell of joy wasn’t a coincidence. After acquiring General Foods back in the mid-‘80s, tobacco behemoth Philip Morris applied its cigarette market research prowess to ultra-processed lunch foods and found that kids seem to really love the DIY construction aspect of Lunchables.