The Conference Board reported Aug. 29 that its U.S. Consumer Confidence Index declined sharply this month, to 99.6 points, after a moderate increase in July, when it stood at 107.0.
The drop, the sharpest one-month decline since Hurricane Katrina, took the confidence index to its lowest level in nine months.
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Other Conference Board indicators also declined. The Present Situation Index fell to 123.4 points, from July’s 134.2, the board said, and the Expectations Index fell to 83.8 from last month’s 88.9.
The monthly confidence survey, in which values for 1985 equal 100 points in each category, is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households; it is conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, the world’s largest custom research company. The board said Aug. 22 was the cutoff date for this month’s preliminary report.
“Consumer confidence lost significant ground in August and is now at its lowest level this year,” Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said in an Aug. 29 news release.” Less-favorable business conditions, coupled with a less-favorable job scenario have resulted in the largest one-month decline in confidence since Hurricane Katrina last year.
“Looking ahead,” she said, “the glass remains half empty, as consumers are growing increasingly more pessimistic about the short-term outlook.”
Consumers saying overall conditions are “good” edged down to 26.1 percent from 27.3 percent; those saying conditions are “bad” edged up to 16.7 percent from last month’s 15.0 percent.
Consumers saying jobs are “plentiful” fell to 24.4 percent from 28.6 percent; those saying jobs are “hard to get” rose to 21.1 percent from July’s 19.6 percent.
The outlook for the next six months also was more negative, the survey found. Respondents anticipating a worsening of business conditions rose to 12.9 percent from last month’s 10.9 percent; those expecting improvement in business conditions edged down to 15.9 percent from 16.1 percent.
Those expecting more jobs to be available in the months ahead dipped to 14.0 percent from 14.3 percent in July; those expecting fewer rose to 18.3 percent from 16.5 percent. The proportion of consumers anticipating increases in their own incomes in the months ahead also dipped, to 17.7 percent from July’s 18.3 percent.
Source: The Conference Board (www.conference-board.org)
