The consumer confidence numbers released yesterday were up for December, which is another step in the right direction for this economy. But for 2009 as a whole, they represented the worst year on record, according to ABC's polling. Americans this past year felt worse about their economic situations than they had since at least 1985, when ABC began its Consumer Comfort Index.
That's not a reason for worry, though. As we've said repeatedly, economic statistical reports are always backward-looking, and the pessimism of the American people in the summer of 2009 isn't going to have anything to do with where the economy goes from here.
That's why it's a bit comical that the Conference Board revised its consumer confidence figures (taken from a different poll than the ABC one) for November. When it announced this week that December's reading had come in at 52.9, it also said that November's number had changed from 49.5 to 50.6. Why would they bother? It's not like a record of housing starts or GDP that's grounded in specific data; it's a measure of how people feel, and no one should mistake it for a hard-and-fast fact. So why would anyone care if people were, by this measure, slightly more optimistic in November than we initially thought?
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