Shoppers will walk near the Nordstrom store at Westfield UTC Shopping Center on January 31, 2025 in San Diego, California.
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Consumer confidence was even bleaked in March as the views on future conditions fell to the lowest levels in more than a decade, the conference committee reported Tuesday.
The monthly confidence index for the board’s current conditions decreased by 7.2 points, and reduced to 92.9 for the fourth consecutive monthly contraction. The economists investigated by Dow Jones were looking for a 93.5 reading.
However, the measure of future expectations speaks even more bleak, with the index falling to 9.6 points to 65.2, the lowest reading of 12 years, well below the 80 level, and was considered a signal of a recession.
The index measures respondents’ outlook on income, business and job outlook.
“Consumer optimism about future income, which has been very strong in the past few months, suggests that the majority have disappeared and concerns about the economy and labor market have begun to spread to consumer evaluations of personal circumstances.”
The investigation comes amid concerns over President Donald Trump’s tariff plans on US imports. This is consistent with other research showing volatile stock markets and emotional decline.
The decline in confidence was driven by these 55-plus declines, but spread to income groups.
In addition to general pessimism, the stock market outlook has slipped sharply, with only 37.4% of respondents hoping for a stock price rise next year. This marked a 10% point decline since February, and was the first time View has become negative since late 2023.
The view on the labor market also weakened, with fewer people expecting more jobs to fall to 16.7%, and expected jobs to rise to 28.5%. The February measurements for each were 18.8% and 26.6%.
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