The fall months brought a trifecta of bad news from an economic standpoint as the number of Americans who quit their jobs in September rose to 3% – the highest rate ever recorded since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) began collecting that data two decades ago. The September numbers translate to 4.4 million people, up 164,000 from August. The so-called “quit rate” was highest in the category of accommodation and food services, at 6.6% with retail trade just behind at 4.8%. More new data from the BLS indicates that year-over-year food prices at full-service restaurants rose by 5.9 percent in October – the largest 12-month increase on record, while the price of on-premise alcohol rose by 3.2 percent over the same period. And the icing on the cake came from the monthly University of Michigan Survey of Consumers which showed that consumer sentiment readings in November fell to the lowest level in a decade – dropping by nearly five full points since October. The decline is largely attributed to a belief among consumers that policymakers in the Nation’s Capital have not deployed an effective strategy to mitigate the damage of surging prices.