US consumer confidence highest in eight months
Expectations for jobs, incomes, and business conditions are improving, the Conference Board says.
Cecilia Zapiain (center) and Sabrina Basquez (right) shopped at a Chicago area Target Store last week as employee Chenille English-Boswell checked prices. Consumer confidence rose in May to its highest level in eight months, the Conference Board reported.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
Americans are registering growing confidence that the worst of the economic downturn is over.
The Conference Board鈥檚 consumer confidence index rose sharply to 54.9 this month, up from 40.8 in April, the New York-based business group . May marks the third monthly rise in a row and the index now stands at its highest level in eight months.
鈥淐onsumers are considerably less pessimistic than they were earlier this year, and expectations are that business conditions, the labor market and incomes will improve in the coming months,鈥� said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board鈥檚 consumer research center, in the release. 鈥淲hile confidence is still weak by historical standards, as far as consumers are concerned, the worst is now behind us."
A fifth of consumers now expect the economy to produce more jobs in the next several months, the Conference Board said, while the share expecting fewer jobs decreased from 32.5 percent to 25.2 percent.
The survey is based on a monthly survey of 5,000 US households.