- Consumer confidence has rebounded in the month of August after seeing deterioration in July.
- The increase was partly due to an improvement in consumer's’ assessment of the job market.
- Conference board said its consumer confidence index jumped to 54.1 in August from an upwardly revised 46.6 in July.
- Economists had been expecting the index to increase to 47.9 from 46.6 originally reported from the previous month.
“Consumer confidence, which had posted back-to-back monthly declines, appears to be back on the mend.” – Lynn Franco (Director of the Conference board Consumer Research)
- The bigger than expected increase by the consumer confidence index was partly due to a slight improvement in consumers’ assessment of current conditions, with the present conditions edging up to 24.9 from 23.3 in July.
- Those claiming business conditions are “bad” fell to 45.6% from 46.5%.
- Those claiming conditions are “good” also edged down to 8.6% from 8.9%.
- Consumers also had a more favorable appraisal of the job market, as those saying jobs are “plentiful” rose to 3.2% from 3.7%
- Those saying jobs are “hard to get” fell to 45.1% from 48.5%
- Report also showed a better improvement in consumers’ assessment of the short term outlook, with expectations index rising to 73.5% in August from 63.4% in July.
"Consumers were more upbeat in their short-term outlook for both the economy and the job market in August, but only slightly more upbeat in their income expectations” – Lynn Franco
- Consumers expecting an improvement in business conditions over the next 6 months rose to 22.4% from 18.4%
- Those expecting conditions to worsen decreased to 15.8% from 19%
- Conference board said that the outlook for the labor market was also more upbeat, as those expecting more jobs in the months ahead rose to 18.4% from 15.5% and those expecting fewer jobs decreased to 23.3% from 26.1%.
- Report also showed that consumers expecting an increase in their incomes increased slightly to 10.6% from 10.1%
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