The Conference Board released its monthly consumer confidence report, with a notable drop from 79.7 down to 71.2. “Consumer confidence deteriorated considerably as the federal government shutdown and debt-ceiling crisis took a particularly large toll on consumers’ expectations,” Said Board director Lynn Franco.
The Consumer Confidence Survey is a “probability-design random sample, is conducted for The Conference Board by Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and analytics around what consumers buy and watch.”
In addition to confidence dropping, expectations over the next six months about possible improvement in business conditions also declined. Previously, 21% expected conditions to improve but the latest numbers register a drop to 16%. Similarly, the number of respondents expecting business conditions to worsen increased to 18% from the previous figure of 10%.