Consumers are hurting these days and they haven’t hurt this bad since Papa Bush was in office way back in 1992.

The New York-based research group Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 50.4 from a revised 58.1 in May. The reading was the lowest since February 1992, when it was 47.3.

Economists had expected the index to decline to 56, according to Briefing.com.

Because I accidentally and stupidly made this political by mentioning that dreaded “B” word, here’s what your two presumptive presidential candidates (well, actually it was just their campaigns) had to say about the numbers. We’ll leave it up to you to guess whose campaign said what (or you could just read the CNN article):

Potential President X: “We know that the public has been concerned and regardless of whether the geeks in the world think there’s a recession or not, the public feels like that.”

Potential President Y: “The disappointing consumer confidence numbers are yet more evidence that we need a change in our economic policy.”

Consumer confidence tumbles to 16-year low [CNNMoney]

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