Thursday, December 28, 2017

Reasons for Confidence

Consumer confidence fell in December, a month after hitting a 17-year high. That's the bad news. The good news is that the level of optimism among Americans for the entire year was the highest it's been since 2000.

Americans were a little less confident in their outlook for jobs and business conditions.  An index that measures future conditions dipped to slightly below average. Consumers were more cheery about conditions right now: The “present” situation index reached its highest level since 2001.

Notably, only 15.2 percent of Americans said jobs were “hard to get,” a 16-year low. The labor market is the strongest its been in years, with a 4.1 percent unemployment rate that's our lowest since December 2000.

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