home values

Not just Wall Street is running scared. The consequences of the financial meltdown now are sinking in with ordinary Americans, who worry whether their jobs, home values, children's futures and retirement plans are at risk, according to a poll out Wednesday.

The economy has endured hurricanes, soaring fuel and food prices, falling home values and a growing credit crisis. Can it now survive Congress?

U.S. consumers are the gloomiest they've been since the tail end of the last prolonged recession. Inflation, sinking home values and soaring gas prices have pushed confidence to the lowest level since 1992.

Consumers' view of the economic future has never been lower, raising worries that already weak consumer spending could deteriorate further.

For months, Americans have been subjected to a sort of economic water torture — a maddening drip of bad news about jobs, gas prices, sagging home values, creeping inflation, the slouching dollar and a stock market in bumpy descent.