Americans’ ratings of the buying climate posted their largest single-week drop in 36 years this week, tumbling to their lowest since May 2020 amid soaring inflation. Views of the national economy fell in tandem, to a nearly one-year low, with the overall Consumer Comfort Index its lowest in 18 months.

The CCI subindex based on ratings of whether or not it’s a good time to buy things lost 6.9 points this week alone, its biggest one-week decline on record in weekly data since late 1985, surpassing two consecutive 5.9-point drops in April 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

At 29.5 on its 0-100 scale, this buying climate gauge has lost a vast 21.2 points since its pandemic peak six months ago, including 14.7 points in just the past four weeks. The drop coincides with the steepest inflation in nearly 40 years, with a 7.0 percent year-on-year increase in the December CPI.

The CCI’s two other gauges similarly are down. The national economy subindex fell 2.7 points this week and 8.2 points the past month, its largest four-week decline since May 2020; it’s now 20.4 points off its pandemic high last summer to its lowest since January 2021. The personal finances subindex, for its part, is down 1.5 points this week to 61.8, a low since late October.

The overall CCI, based on these measures, stands at 41.9, down 3.7 points this week and 8.4 points since mid-December, when the highly transmissible Omicron variant began to take hold in the United States. It’s in its steepest tailspin since the initial months of the pandemic, extending a descent from its pandemic peak of 58.2 in late August to its lowest since June 2020.

The personal finances subindex remains high by historical standards, still 5.4 points above its 36-year average. The national economy subindex, by comparison, dipped below its long-term average for the first time since February and the buying climate gauge is 7.9 points short of its average.