Consumer Confidence No Help to Bush
Jan. 24, 2007 — -- Consumer confidence is higher now than it was a year ago, but the change has done nothing to improve President Bush's approval rating.
The ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index stands at -3 on its scale of +100 to -100, about the same as last week. It was at -9 just ahead of last year's State of the Union address and reached a low of -19 as recently as last August.
No credit, apparently, goes to Bush, whose job rating matched its career low in a separate ABC/Post poll this week. Fifty-seven percent disapprove of his work on the economy, and 60 percent trust the Democrats more to handle it.
One likely cause for higher confidence is declining gasoline prices, down another 6 cents this week to a national average of $2.17 a gallon. It was $2.34 a year ago. Then again it was $1.47 -- and the index was +17 -- when Bush took office at this time in 2001.
INDEX -- The CCI is based on Americans' ratings of the economy, the buying climate and their personal finances. This week 46 percent rate the economy positively and 61 percent say their finances are good, each rating five points higher than a year ago. Thirty-nine percent call it a good time to buy things, about the same as last year.
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. In the last two months, the trend flattened, dipped and flattened again.
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 and -6 among women -- a closer spread between the sexes than usual.
Huge partisan differences remain: The CCI is +36 among Republicans, -5 among independents and -28 among Democrats.
Here's a closer look at the three components of the ABC/Post CCI:
NATIONAL ECONOMY -- Forty-six percent of Americans rate the economy as excellent or good, the same as last week. The highest was 80 percent on Jan. 16, 2000. The lowest was 7 percent in late 1991 and early 1992.
PERSONAL FINANCES -- Sixty-one percent say their own finances are excellent or good; it was 62 percent last week. The best was 70 percent on Aug. 30, 1998, matched in January 2000. The worst was 42 percent on March 14, 1993.
BUYING CLIMATE -- Thirty-nine percent say it's an excellent or good time to buy things, same as last week. The best was 57 percent on Jan. 16, 2000. The worst was 20 percent in fall 1990.
METHODOLOGY -- Interviews for the ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index are reported in a four-week rolling average. This week's results are based on telephone interviews among a random national sample of 1,000 adults in the four weeks leading up to Jan. 22, 2007. The results have a three-point error margin. Field work by ICR-International Communications Research of Media, Pa.
The index is derived by subtracting the negative response to each index question from the positive response to that question. The three resulting numbers are added and divided by three. The index can range from +100 (everyone positive on all three measures) to -100 (all negative on all three measures). The survey began in December 1985.