Amid rising gasoline prices and growing inflation fears, Americans’ ratings of the buying climate sustained their sharpest decline since last spring this week, pushing the overall Consumer Comfort Index to its first significant loss of the year.

The week’s CCI results are marked by a steep 2.9-point drop in Americans’ ratings of “whether or not it’s a good time to buy the things you want and need” – the largest one-week decline in this subindex since April 2020, when initial coronavirus lockdowns sent consumer sentiment into freefall.

Just a week after reaching a new pandemic peak, the overall CCI – which also includes Americans’ views of the national economy and their own finances – is down 1.5 points to 53.8 on its 0-100 scale. It last fell significantly in December, followed by its best early-year results on record in 35 years of weekly data.

At 46.2, the buying climate subindex is at a nearly two-month low and 3.0 points off its pandemic peak four weeks ago. The other CCI gauges, based on Americans’ ratings of their personal finances and the national economy, are essentially steady this week at 67.5 and 47.7, about even with their highs in the pandemic, set one week and four weeks ago, respectively.

Worsening views of the buying climate come as gas prices are their highest since 2014, given growing demand and a shortage caused by the cybersecurity attack on the Colonial Pipeline three weeks ago. It also coincides with a rise in inflation generally, with the CPI in April up 4.2 percent from the year previous, the largest increase in 12 years.

Worsening assessments of the buying climate are highly partisan. The subindex is down 8.0 points among Republicans compared with a slight 4.2-point drop among independents and a nonsignificant 1.0-point gain among Democrats. As for the overall index, the CCI among Republicans is down 5.4 points this week to 55.7, vs. essentially no change among either Democrats (57.9) or independents (48.3).