Datapoint

I didn't see this coming; consequently, it caught me by surprise.  

Here we are, barely one month into the new year, and the Conference Board's long-running consumer confidence index fell 9.7 points from 94.2 in December.  This was a sharp drop with all five components of the index deteriorating making it one of the largest monthly drops in four years and placing American's confidence in the economy at the lowest it has been in a dozen years.  

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Popular sentiment about the economy is both a curious and fickle phenomenon.  Over the last couple of years consumer confidence did not necessarily reflect the underlying strength of the US economy.  This drop is an assessment of survey respondents' current state of economic affairs and their expectations for the future.  Notably, the index is now below the level it sank during the pandemic when unemployment was approaching 15%.

Asked about jobs the share of consumers who shared that jobs are plentiful fell to 23.9% from 27.5% in December.  Similarly, 13.9% expected more jobs to be available in the next six months compared with 17.4% in December. 

Economists suggest that these data point are the latest evidence of American's perceptions of a weaker labor market than the actual numbers may imply.  It this a wariness of potential impacts from artificial intelligence?

Again, economists over at the Conference Board suggest that respondent's answers to the survey continues to trend pessimistic with elevated concerns over food and grocery prices, health insurance, utilities, future business conditions, income prospects and trade war impacts.

Despite robust GDP growth and an overall low unemployment rate U.S. consumers are pessimistic about the general economic outlook.

Go figure.