Summary Consumers do not know what to make of the crosscurrents in today’s economy. Inflation is bad, the job market is good, COVID feels like less of a threat but supply chain problems persist. No wonder most of the major gauges in today’s Consumer Confidence report were little changed.
The Most Incremental of ChangesU.S. consumer confidence came in at 107.3 in April, which would have marked an increase from the prior month’s reading of 107.2, but a slight upward revision to February’s reading to 107.6 means that confidence technically slipped three tenths of a point. Rather than quibbling over the directional change of a fractional move, the bigger point to make here is that confidence is a far cry from the pandemic era high of 128.9 reached in June of last year. Prospect were so much brighter then. Vaccines were newly available, people were reconnecting with loved ones after more than a year of pandemic-induced separation and, while prices were rising, households were flush with cash from stimulus checks that went out in January and March of that year. READ FULL ARTICLE>>