Consumer Confidence: Shaky Start for '07

Jan. 9, 2007 — -- Consumer confidence is off to a shaky start in 2007, dropping from the 2006 high it reached in mid-December. It's at its lowest this week since Oct. 22.

The ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index stands at -5 on its scale of +100 to -100, down from +1 three weeks ago. That's still better than its 2006 average, -10, and its recent low, -19, in August as gasoline prices spiked.

Excepting the period of mid-1997 to mid-2001, the index rarely has a footing in the zone of positive numbers. The index's long-term average is -9.

INDEX -- The CCI is based on Americans' ratings of the national economy, the buying climate and their personal finances. This week 37 percent of Americans say it is a good time to buy things, down from a recent high of 44 percent in late November.

Forty-four percent rate the national economy positively -- it was 48 percent, a more-than-five-year high, three weeks ago -- and 61 percent rate their personal finances positively, compared with 65 percent in mid-November, the most since August 2001.

TREND -- The slow start to 2007 follows a rally that lifted the index through the fall, from -19 on Aug. 27 to +1 in November and December. The CCI is a long way from its best days, an average of +29 in 2000, peaking at +38 in January 2000. But it's been vastly worse -- an average of -44 in 1992, bottoming out at -50 that February.

GROUPS -- As usual, the index reads higher for those better off -- far better, for example, among higher-income Americans, college graduates and whites. It's +5 among men while -13 among women. And huge partisan differences remain: The CCI is +39 among Republicans, but -15 among independents and -27 among Democrats.