Americans are heading into the holidays feeling worse about jobs and inflation than they did this time last year, with consumer sentiment hovering near record lows. Though the University of Michigan’s final reading of consumer sentiment for December showed a modest improvement of 1.9 points from November, the overall index remains 28.5% lower than it was a year ago at 52.9. Last December, the reading was at 74. "This is a very, very substantial decline over a relatively short period of time," Joanne Hsu, the director of the survey of consumers, said in a Yahoo Finance video appearance Friday. "Consumers ... (full story)