American Economic Confidence Slips

The Conference Board reported that consumer confidence rose to 70.4 in February from 64.8 in January. Consumer evaluation of the present situation rose to 33.4 — the highest level since November of 2008 — from 31.1 in January. Taking into account present employment, those saying that jobs are “hard to get” decreased to 45.7% from 47%

A new Gallup poll tells a different story, although the measurement is slightly different from the Conference Board data.

“Gallup’s Economic Confidence measure worsened to its lowest weekly level of 2011, -26, in the week ending Feb. 20. This essentially matches the -27 of the same week a year ago, giving up improvement seen earlier this year.”

The difference in data shows why American are confused by the huge numbers of statistics about housing, unemployment, consumer confidence, and attitudes toward government and business. Each research firm which measures these numbers jockeys for the top position in the general population esteem with the result being information chaos.

Methodology: Results are based on telephone interviews conducted with 3,434 respondents, aged 18 and older, as part of Gallup Daily tracking during the week ending Feb. 20, 2011, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.

Douglas A. McIntyre