The view from a job search
US consumer confidence fell to 81.9 in September from a revised 88.6 in August. The answers underneath are more concrete than the headline gauge. The share calling current business conditions bad rose to 20.4%, above the 18.5% calling them good. The gap between respondents who said jobs were plentiful and those who said jobs were hard to get narrowed to 1.7 percentage points. For someone looking for work, that narrow gap is closer to the question at hand than one national sentiment number.[1]
Looking six months ahead, 14.0% expected more jobs and 28.4% expected fewer. The share expecting household income to increase fell to 17.9%, while 15.4% expected it to decline. The survey does not show whether the same people gave those answers, so the groups cannot simply be paired. The simultaneous weakening matters for workers’ room to bargain: fewer respondents envisage a more generous jobs market, and fewer envisage a raise in household income. These are expectations reported by households, rather than an observed pay cut.[1]
The uneven household budget
More respondents rated their family’s current finances bad than good, only the second such reversal since that question was added four years ago. Average and median inflation expectations over the next twelve months rose to 6.1% and 5.1%. Written answers frequently named the cost of goods and services, especially oil and gasoline. A pump price is visible and repeatedly paid, which helps explain why it attracts attention. The survey does not establish that every household buys the same amount of fuel or has suffered the same loss of income.[1]
The income split is less tidy than a simple rich-versus-poor story. On a six-month moving-average basis, confidence fell in nearly every income group, while higher-income groups remained generally more optimistic. Yet households earning 125,000 to 149,000 dollars a year reported the largest six-month decline. That detail matters when asking who feels the deterioration fastest. The release does not provide a linked table of each group’s food, rent and transport budget, so the survey cannot put a dollar amount on the burden borne by any income band.[1]
The Conference Board’s online sample closed on September 23. Its answers therefore do not amount to a ledger of all spending or prices at month end. The release usefully separates present conditions from expectations: the present-situation index fell to 109.3 and the expectations index to 63.6. People are reporting a weaker assessment of work and household finances now, with an even more guarded view ahead. The size of any corresponding change in pay packets or actual purchases requires observed wage and spending data; these survey answers describe how households see their position.[1]