Consumer Confidence Surprisingly Improves in March as Outlook Grows Brighter

The turmoil that rocked the U.S. banking sector in March did not dampen consumer optimism.

The Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence rose slightly from the previous month to 104.2. The previous month’s reading was revised up to 103.4 from 102.9.

The March improvement was not expected. Economists had forecast a decline to 101.0 after the index unexpectedly fell in the two previous months.

The cutoff date for the survey was March 20th. Silicon Valley Bank failed and was seized by regulators on Friday, March 10.

The gauge of consumers’ views of current business and labor market conditions edged down to 151.1 from 153 in the previous month.

The share of saying consumers saying business conditions are good rose to 18.4 percent from 18.0 percent the previous month. At the same time, the share saying business conditions are bad jumped to 19.3 percent, up from 17.4 percent.

Views of the labor market were still very positive, although less so than in February. The share saying jobs are plentiful fell to 49.1 percent from 51.2 percent. The share saying jobs are had to get held about steady at 10.3 percent.

But consumers’ expectations improved. The index of expectations moved up to 73.0 from 70.4 in February. The Conference Board said that for 12 of the last 13 months—since February 2022—the Expectations Index has been below 80, the level which often signals a recession within the next year.

The outlook for short-term business and labor conditions improved slightly. But expectations for short-term income prospects were slightly less upbeat.

“While consumers feel a bit more confident about what’s ahead, they are slightly less optimistic about the current landscape. The share of consumers saying jobs are ‘plentiful’ fell, while the share of those saying jobs are ‘not so plentiful’ rose. The latest results also reveal that their expectations of inflation over the next 12 months remains elevated—at 6.3 percent. Overall purchasing plans for appliances continued to soften while automobile purchases saw a slight increase,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, Senior Director, Economics at The Conference Board.