America's economic mood is improving fast: survey

In the last couple months, Americans' sour sentiment has grown a lot sunnier.

Why it matters: Since the pandemic, U.S. consumers have consistently reported depressed economic sentiment, despite that fact that America's economy has staged a better recovery from COVID than the rest of the world's rich nations have.

State of play: Starting two months ago, America's mood started heading back up.

A University of Michigan index that tracks consumer sentiment has surged more than 28% since November.

Context: Since the late 1970s, the only other period of such a rapid two-month turnabout came in March 1991, amid the good feeling that permeated the country after the victory of the U.S. and its allies against Iraq in the first Gulf War.