Consumer confidence up slightly in survey ahead of bailout failure
A monthly gauge of consumer confidence nudged up slightly in September as improving economic expectations offset growing pessimism about current conditions, the Conference Board reported Tuesday.
The index, which gauges opinions on business conditions, the labor market and inflation from a sample of 5,000 U.S. households, increased to 59.8 for the month from 58.5 in August. The increase followed a bump in confidence in August as the index continued a rebound from historic lows in May and June.
Responses collected for the September confidence survey were collected through Sept. 23, nearly a week before the U.S. House of Representatives defeated the proposed $700 billion economic bailout package and sent the nation’s financial markets tumbling.
“These results did not capture all of the tumultuous events in the financial sector this month, and until the dust settles a bit more, we will not know the full impact on consumers’ expectations,” Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said in a release.
The month’s confidence score shows continued erosion in consumers’ assessment of current economic conditions paydayloans paydayloans.com. More than one in three respondents, 34.2 percent, said business conditions were bad, up from 32.7 percent in August. Those viewing jobs as hard to get increased to 32.8 percent from 31.7 percent.
At the same time, short-term expectations on the future nudged up slightly, though they remain historically low. Of the 5,000 respondents, 21.3 percent said they expect business conditions to worsen over the next six months, an improvement from 25.2 percent in August. The share of consumers expecting fewer jobs in the coming months fell to 26.8 percent from 30 percent in August.
The monthly survey is conducted for the Conference Board by research company TNS.