Confidence Marches to Seven-Month High
Fifty-one percent positively rate their personal finances.
May 5, 2009 — -- Consumer confidence marched forward for the third straight week to its best since October with a majority rating their personal finances positively for the first time since July.
The ABC News Consumer Comfort Index stands at -43 on its scale of +100 to -100, an 8-point gain in three weeks to its best in seven months. Despite the positive trajectory, the CCI is still in its lowest, longest stretch – below -40 for over a year – and well below its long-term average of -11.
Click here for a PDF with charts and data table.
Fifty-one percent of Americans now rate their personal finances positively, the highest in nine months. Half as many, 26 percent, call it a good time to buy things, matching its best of the year. Only 9 percent rate the national economy positively, its best since early November, but still in the dumps.
The recent uptick in confidence comes as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress today that the economy should pull out of the current recession and start growing later this year. That should be welcome news considering the recession has lingered as long as any since the Great Depression.
In a separate ABC News/Washington Post poll last week 55 percent reported optimism about the national economy over the next year, the most since 2006. But these improved hopes can't erase the current pain of layoffs and pay cuts. Twenty-three percent said someone in their home had been laid off or lost a job in recent months and 35 percent reported a cut in work hours or pay.
INDEX – The CCI, as noted, is based on Americans' ratings of the national economy, their personal finances and the buying climate. Only 9 percent rate the economy positively, in single digits for a record 26 weeks and 30 points below average.
Twenty-six percent say it's a good time to buy things, 11 points below the long-term average and just 8 points above the record low reached in October and August.
As usual, more, 51 percent, rate their own finances positively, 5 points above the 2009 average and just 6 points below the long-term average.
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