Topline
The consumer confidence index dropped in November, the Conference Board said in a report issued Tuesday, falling 6.8 points to its lowest level since April, when fears over the Trump administration’s tariffs drove a sharp drop in confidence.
Only 1% of consumers said business conditions were good in the U.S., according to the Conference Board’s report.
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Key Facts
The consumer confidence index fell to 88.7 in November, according to the Conference Board’s latest report, after posting a revised index of 95.5 in October during the height of the government shutdown.
Tuesday’s drop in confidence was worse than expectations—economists polled by Reuters expected the index to drop only a few points to 93.4 in November.
Consumers appeared lukewarm about the state of the economy—only 1% of consumers said business conditions were good, compared to 20.7% in October.
At the same time, only 9% said business conditions were bad, compared to 14.5% who said so in October.
Consumers were also nixing plans to purchase big-ticket items, such as cars and household appliances, as well as their spending on services and travel in the next six months, according to the Conference Board.
How Are Consumers Feeling About The Future?
Only 9% of consumers polled said they expected business conditions to improve in the next six months, although only 7% expected them to worsen during the same period. They were equally lukewarm about the job market. Only 6% of consumers interviewed agreed that jobs were plentiful, compared to 28.6% in October. Future income expectations also cratered—only 3% expected their incomes would increase in the next six months, compared to 18.2% in October. An increasing number of consumers (13.8%) are now expecting their incomes to fall in the next six months, up two percentage points since October. The number of respondents who said their family financial situation was “good” ticked down, the Conference Board reported, while the number of consumers who expected it would get better in the next six months fell. The Conference Board’s release provided graphs, but did not give exact percentages for these figures.