Consumer sentiment matched its lowest of the year this week, but with a possible silver lining: Just 30 percent of Americans say the economy’s getting even worse, matching the six-year low.
That may be a thin reed, with 92 percent in the latest ABC News consumer survey saying the national economy’s in bad shape. Nonetheless, just 30 percent say it’s getting worse, down from recent highs of 36 percent in January and 43 percent last September, much less a towering 82 percent as the economy fell into the abyss in October 2008.
It now ties the lowest “getting worse” rating in ABC News polls since January 2004, also reached this past December. On the other hand, only about a quarter say the economy’s getting better, while a little more than four in 10 say it’s staying the same – which for nearly all, as noted, is not good at all. (More saw the economy improving, 33 percent, in spring 2009, in a boost of hopes after Barack Obama took office. It didn’t hold.)
While “getting worse” gauges expectations, views of current conditions could hardly be more grim. The ABC News Consumer Comfort Index is back to -50 on its scale of +100 to -100, matching its 2010 low and just 4 points from its all-time low in 24 years of weekly polls, -54 in January 2009 and December 2008. The index has lost 7 points in just two weeks, entirely giving up a pair of short-lived advances to -43 in March and again early this month.
The CCI’s now been below -40 for two years straight, a record. Compare that to its long-term average, -13, much less its highs, +29 in 2000 overall and +38 one week that January.
Just 43 percent rate their own finances positively, down from 47 percent last week and well below the long-term average, 56 percent. Fewer than half have rated their own finances positively for 15 weeks straight, and for 97 of the last 103 weeks, a remarkable run of negative financial assessments.
Among the index’s two other components, 76 percent call this a bad time to spend money, 13 points worse than average; and, as noted, 92 percent say the economy’s hurting. In another sign of the economy’s long-running troubles, the last time fewer than three-quarters of Americans rated the economy negatively was in January 2008.
Link to data tables from ABC CCI Index
Grandpa Time: WOW! "Nonetheless, just 30 percent say it’s getting worse". It sounds so media-like. If just 3 of every 10 people crossing the street were hit by a car.......???
The ABC report is in stark contrast to the recent Consumer Conference Board's index on consumer confidence for March. Their reading portrayed a giddy consumer reading 13% better than February.
Grandpa's observations about those likely excluded in the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey but included in the ABC survey:
1. Do not watch CNBC "we are in the best of times" financial news outlet
2. Confuse Jim Cramer (Mad Money) with Reverend Jim Ignatowski (Taxi)
3. A guy would not purchase an ipad (in public) for his girlfriend
4. Did not refinance the mortgage 4 times to buy a Harley and a Coach bag
5. Makes their monthly mortgage payment
6. May hold a PT job to pay for the 20% health care premium increases
7. Comprehend the odds of wining the Powerball Jackpot are 1 in 195 million
8. Wonder why Geithner states "return on taxpayer TARP investment" when they did not have a vote
9. Believe in the Oath of Office: "...that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."
10. Remembers their parents telling them that life was fair and if you put your "nose to the grindstone...."
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