Consumer Confidence Slides to Record Low in January

Reuters
Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009

U.S. consumer confidence fell to a record low in January as a downtrodden housing sector and worsening job prospects kept the country in a somber mood.

The Conference Board, an industry group, said its sentiment index fell to 37.7 from a revised 38.6 in December, confounding forecasts for a small uptick.

“Consumers remain quite pessimistic about the state of the economy,” said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Research Center. “Until we begin to see considerable improvements in the expectations index, we can’t say the worst of times are behind us.”

In January, the expectations index dropped to 43.0 from 44.2 the previous month. Yet despite the worst year for the labor market in more than a half century, Americans were remaining cautiously optimistic about their prospects.

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The number of respondents saying jobs were hard to get edged down slightly, although the proportion of consumers expecting their incomes to rise declined to 10 percent from 12.7 percent.

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