If U.S. consumers are experiencing this much pain now, what will things look like six months from today if there are empty shelves and widespread shortages?  We witnessed a brief period of severe financial stress during the early days of the last pandemic, but we would have to go all the way back to the Great Recession to find a time that is truly comparable to what we are enduring now.  U.S consumers have been getting hammered for years, and now it appears that our problems are about to go to an entirely new level.  The following are 12 signs that U.S. consumers are experiencing far more financial stress than most people realize…

#1 According to the University of Michigan, consumer sentiment in the United States has fallen to the second-lowest reading ever recorded…

Americans are rarely this pessimistic about the economy.

Consumer sentiment plunged 11% this month to a preliminary reading of 50.8, the University of Michigan said in its latest survey released Friday, the second-lowest reading on records going back to 1952.

#2 According to a new CNBC/SurveyMonkey poll, a whopping 73 percent of U.S. consumers admit that they are "financially stressed"…

Americans are growing increasingly uneasy about the state of the U.S. economy and their own personal financial situation in the face of stubborn inflation and tariff wars.