Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Surprises in Consumer Confidence

Consumer confidence showed an unexpected decline for the month of May, falling from 119.4 down to 117.9. With that drop, consumer confidence saw its first back-to-back drop since May of last year, although it still remains well above its long-term average of 93.

There's a fascinating divergence in confidence based on income levels in the past two months. Sentiment among consumers with incomes greater than $50,000 has dropped over 10 percentage points in the last two months, which is the largest two-month decline in two years. But confidence levels among consumers with incomes between $35,000 and $50,000 actually increased this month and is barely down in the last two months.

But for lower-income folks, it's a completely different story. For consumers with annual incomes below $15,000, confidence is at its highest level in nearly 16 years.

No comments:

Post a Comment