American consumers reported being less confident about economic conditions today and in the future, driving The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index down to 104.0 points in April (1985 = 100) from 108.2 in March and 109.8 points in April 2006.
Lynn Franco, director of the board’s Consumer Research Center, said that “this month’s decline was a combination of weakening expectations and a less favorable assessment of present-day conditions.” She added that rising gasoline prices are putting a damper on consumers’ expectations in the short term.
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The CCI in New England fell to 80.1, from March’s 92.5 and February’s 111.4. The New England CCI stood at 102.5 in April 2006.
Consumers saw the short-term labor market in less positive terms, with those saying jobs are “hard to get” rising to 20.4 percent from 18.9 percent, while those who claimed jobs are “plentiful” dropped to 27.8 percent from 30.3 percent in March.
At the same time, those expecting business conditions to worsen increased to 10.2 percent from 9.8 percent, as those anticipating improvements in business conditions fell to 13.5 percent from 14.5 percent.
The Consumer Confidence Survey is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households. The monthly survey is conducted for The Conference Board by TNS. TNS is the world’s largest custom research company. The cutoff date for this month’s preliminary results was April 17.
Additional information is available at www.Conference-Board.org.
