Confidence Approaches Elusive Positive Zone

Feb. 7, 2007 — -- Consumer confidence inched near the elusive positive zone this week, improving slightly from its shaky start to the new year a month ago.

The ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index stands at -1 on its scale of +100 to -100, little changed from -3 the last two weeks but better than its -5 on Jan. 7.It briefly hit positive numbers (+1) in December and November, for the first time since, also briefly, spring 2002.

While still outside the happy zone (which the index sustained from mid-1997 to mid-2001), the CCI is better than usual (a 21-year average of -9) and a good deal better than its recent low, -19 last August. Lower gas prices surely have helped.

INDEX -- The ABC/Post CCI is based on Americans' ratings of the national economy, the buying climate and their personal finances. This week 47 percent rate the national economy positively -- close to its recent five-year high of 48 percent, reached Dec. 17, and seven points above the long-term average in weekly polls since late 1985.

Sixty-one percent rate their personal finances positively, compared with a long-term average of 57 percent. (It hit 65 percent in mid-November, the most since August 2001.) And 41 percent call it a good time to buy things, three points over the long-term average.

TREND -- As noted, 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 a slight gain more recently.

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 -- The index is higher in better-off groups -- far higher among higher-income Americans, college graduates and whites. It's +7 among men and -8 among women. And big partisan differences remain: +32 among Republicans, but 1 among independents and -23 among Democrats.