{"id":4612,"date":"2015-01-28T11:44:34","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T17:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=4612"},"modified":"2015-01-28T11:44:34","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T17:44:34","slug":"u-s-consumer-confidence-surges-to-7-12-year-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/u-s-consumer-confidence-surges-to-7-12-year-high\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. consumer confidence surges to 7 1\/2\u2013year high"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Yasufumi Saito<\/p>\n<p>Greater chances of getting a job and lower gasoline prices are making Americans feel more comfortable about today\u2019s economy like it was before the recession.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. consumer confidence jumped sharply in January to its strongest level since August 2007, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conference-board.org\/press\/pressdetail.cfm?pressid=5375\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a> Tuesday by The Conference Board, a non-profit business research group.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Consumer Confidence Index surged 9.8 points to 102.9 from a revised 93.1 in December, exceeding Wall Street\u2019s estimate of 95.5 complied by Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA more positive assessment of current business and labor market conditions contributed to the improvement in consumers\u2019 view of the present situation,\u201d said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at The Conference Board, in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConsumers also expressed a considerably higher degree of optimism regarding the short-term outlook for the economy and labor market, as well as their earnings,\u201d Franco added.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"474px\" height=\"266px\" src=\"\/\/embed.chartblocks.com\/1.0\/?c=54c81616c9a61dda7952f48e&#038;t=f44489a2fab6b32\" frameBorder=\"0\" padding=\"-60px,0,-60px,0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously having cheaper gasoline and increased disposable income contributed to build consumer confidence,\u201d said Michael Englund, chief economist at Action Economics LLC, \u201cit\u2019s beneficial especially for the U.S. since our economy is using such a huge amount of gasoline every day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut it\u2019s still unclear whether it\u2019s good or not,\u201d he added. \u201cWe might see lots of unemployed people in the mining section over the next several months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Illinois-based Sterne Agee Group Inc., has a different view. \u201cLower gas prices tend to skew the survey in a more positive direction,\u201d she said. \u201cYet I do not think it gives an accurate sense of the malaise and inadequacy that many Americans still feel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Consumers thinking today\u2019s business conditions are \u201cgood\u201d increased 3.4 percentage points to 28.1 percent from 24.7 percent in December, while those who believe commercial conditions are \u201cbad\u201d fell more than 2 percentage points to 16.8 percent from 18.9 percent, the report stated.<\/p>\n<p>Consumers\u2019 assessment of the labor market also solidly improved. Those who stating jobs are \u201cplentiful\u201d rose 3.3 percentage points to 20.5 percent from 17.2 percent in December, while those claiming jobs are \u201chard to get\u201d declined 1.6 percentage points to 25.7 percent from 27.3, according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>The index is based on a monthly survey of approximately 3,000 samples about consumers\u2019 opinions on current economic and labor conditions as well as expectations for future conditions. The index benchmark is 1985.<\/p>\n<div id=\"featurecaption\">\nPhoto at top: Consumer confidence is on the rise (Yasufumi Saito\/Medill)\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Yasufumi Saito Greater chances of getting a job and lower gasoline prices are making Americans feel more comfortable about today\u2019s economy like it was before the recession. U.S. consumer confidence jumped sharply in January to its strongest level since August 2007, according to a report Tuesday by The Conference Board, a non-profit business research [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":4624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-winter-2015"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>U.S. consumer confidence surges to 7 1\/2\u2013year high - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/u-s-consumer-confidence-surges-to-7-12-year-high\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"U.S. consumer confidence surges to 7 1\/2\u2013year high - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Yasufumi Saito Greater chances of getting a job and lower gasoline prices are making Americans feel more comfortable about today\u2019s economy like it was before the recession. 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