Consumer Confidence: Rebounds Slightly

Jan. 16, 2007 — -- Consumer confidence rebounded slightly this week after a shaky start to the year, though it remains short of the 2006 high it reached in mid-December.

The ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index stands at -2 on its scale of +100 to -100, reversing a three-week slide to a two-month low of -5 last week. While outside the elusive positive zone, it's above both its 2006 average (-10) and its long-term average in weekly polls since late 1985 (-9).

This week's slight rebound coincides with easing gasoline prices -- this week's eight-cent per-gallon drop in the U.S. Department of Energy survey was the largest weekly drop since the end of September -- and a strong stock market.

INDEX -- The CCI is based on Americans' ratings of the national economy, the buying climate and their personal finances. This week 46 percent rate the national economy positively -- close to its recent five-year high of 48 percent, reached four weeks ago, and six points above the long-term average.

Sixty-two percent rate their personal finances positively, five points over the long-term average. (It hit 65 percent in mid-November, the most since August 2001.) And 39 percent call it a good time to buy things, about matching its average.

TREND -- A rally in the last quarter of 2006 lifted the index into the positive range, from its 2006 low of -19 on Aug. 27 to +1 in November and December. That trend flattened, then turned south before this week's slight gain.

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 is higher in better-off groups -- far better, for example, among higher-income Americans, college graduates and whites. It's +2 among men while -7 among women -- a closer spread between the sexes than usual.

Huge partisan differences remain: The CCI is +36 among Republicans, but -12 among independents and -27 among Democrats.