Consumer confidence jumps
By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, January 1, 2006
New York — Consumer confidence jumped again in December to its highest level since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in September, The Conference Board reported last week.
The index rose to 103.6 in December from 98.3 in November, according to the monthly survey of 5,000 U.S. households conducted for the board by TNS. The cutoff date for the preliminary results was Dec. 20.
The Present Situation Index surged to 121.5 from 113.2, while the Expectations Index increased to 91.6 from 88.4 in November.
"The resiliency of the economy, recent declines in prices at the pump and job growth have consumers feeling more confident at year-end than they felt at the start of 2005," said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board's Consumer Research Center. "Even though all of the improvement over the past 12 months has been in consumers' assessment of current conditions, and expectations remain below earlier levels, consumers are confident that the economy will continue to expand in 2006."
Consumers rating business conditions as "bad" declined to 14.7% in December from 17.9% in November, although those rating conditions as "good" also declined a bit, to 24.3% from 25.6%. In the employment market, 22.2% said jobs were "hard to get" in December, down from 23.6% a month earlier, while the percentage saying jobs were "plentiful" edged up to 23.3% from 21.1%.
Consumers' short-term outlook improved moderately. Those expecting business conditions to worsen declined to 9.2% from 11.5% the previous month, but those expecting business conditions to improve also dipped, to 18.1% from 19%.
The labor market outlook was virtually unchanged, with 14.3% expecting more jobs to become available in the next six months and 18% expecting fewer jobs. The percentage of consumers expecting their incomes to increase in the months ahead declined to 20.6% from 21.3% in November.
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