The Wall Street Journal reported in its Sept. 3 edition that the gap in confidence between high-earners and low-earners “is now the widest it has been in the seven years of tracking the data.”

The newspaper said that, for this nation’s middle class, this summer has been one of cooling confidence, with consumer sentiment dropping nearly 6% in August.

If that “confidence dive” continues, 2025’s end-of-year holidays could prove dismal for retailers, not only somewhere else but here in the Southern Alleghenies region as well.

Black Friday, already a skeleton of its former self, at least in the realm of brick-and-mortar stores, could end up exhibiting doom-and-gloom and uncertainty like what existed as the effects of the pandemic still were being felt.

Such a scenario would set the stage for more retailers to shut their doors forever.

Few people would dare to challenge the Journal’s informed observations about the increasing woes of the middle class, especially that evidence of a squeezed middle class is mounting while high-earners are much more likely to continue spending.

The Journal article in question mentions the observations of companies familiar to people of this region — names such as Kohl’s, Walmart, Advance Auto Parts, McDonald’s, O’Reilly Automotive, IHOP and Denny’s, all feeling the sting of lower middle-class spending.

Walmart says middle- and low-income shoppers are reining in spending and putting fewer discretionary items in their carts. Restaurants and fast-food establishments have told the Journal that their middle-class customers are increasingly strapped, and many of their lower-income diners either are staying away or opting for cheaper-menu items.

Increasing numbers of U.S. consumers say they are cutting back on spending in a bigger way than what they did when inflation spiked in 2022. And, if they are buying about the same amount of items, their shopping carts consist of more generic brands.

The turnabout has come quickly, said data-intelligence firm Morning Consult, as a result of polling that it conducted as mid-year approached.

Morning Consult noted that in early June, people with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 were feeling more confident about the economy than they had been since before the pandemic, but then a change took place.

Over a period of just several weeks, their optimism began to evaporate, and they fell out of step with their wealthier counterparts.

In August, they found themselves amid a consumer-sentiment drop of 6%, and the proverbial “alarm bells” began to sound, much to business’ dismay. Morning Consult described the situation about the waning optimism this way:

“After months of tracking high-income earners’ increasing confidence about the economy, households making between $50,000 and $100,000 made an abrupt about-face in June. They now more closely resemble low-income earners’ gloomier views.”

“There was a period of time, briefly, where the middle-income consumer looked like they were being dragged up by all that was going well in the world,” said John Leer, Morning Consult chief economist. “Then things fell off a cliff.”

A quick rescue is in order. Not much of 2025 remains to fix the gap in confidence.

The mystery now is what will be said about confidence four or six months from today.