Now, a group of them has created an interesting model that suggests much of people's dissatisfaction with the economy comes down to interest rates. In fact, the impact of rising interest rates isn't directly accounted for anywhere in the official CPI report — even though they've also contributed to surging car payments and made credit card debt much more costly. That's why the economists developed their own inflation measure, and they think it provided a more accurate prediction of economic sentiment. Cramer said additional evidence for the impact of interest rates on consumer sentiment has come in recent months. Between November and January, the Michigan consumer sentiment index saw its biggest two-month increase since 1991 — just as mortgage rates fell from their recent peak.

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Persons: —, Judd Cramer, Larry Summers, they've, hasn't, Harvard's Cramer, Cramer, pocketbooks, it's, Joe Biden's Organizations: Service, Business, National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard University, International Monetary Fund, of Labor Statistics, University of, Harvard, BLS, Federal, CPI, Federal Reserve Locations: Michigan