Americans’ Economic Confidence Turns Negative For First Time Since Election

Last week, we noted that, despite storms, wildfires, quakes, higher gas prices, and failed Washington policies, Americans are – according to The University of Michigan – their most confident since January 2004.

Additionally, businesses are cock-a-hoop BUT the real economy is seriously lagging…

This all seems a little odd… and sure enough, we get a survey from Gallup that seems to fit reality a lot more accurately…

Americans’ confidence in the U.S. economy tilted slightly negative last week for the first time in 2017. Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index was -1 for the week ending Oct. 15, down seven points from the previous week.

Though a first for 2017, the index has flirted with negative territory at several points in recent months — with a score of zero in late June, for example. But even with this week’s dip into negative territory, confidence remains higher in 2017 than in any year since Gallup began tracking the index in 2008.

Americans’ waning confidence is largely attributable to a sharp decline in their outlook for the economy’s future. For the week ending Oct. 15, 42% of national adults said the economy is “getting better” while 53% said it is “getting worse,”resulting in an economic outlook score of -11. This is down from -3 the week prior and is, by one point, the lowest score for the outlook component in 2017 so far.

As Gallup concludes, last week’s drop in Americans’ overall confidence was largely driven by a more negative than usual assessment of the direction in which the economy is headed. This could be related to the recent report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which found a loss of 33,000 jobs in September after a series of damaging storms in Florida, Texas and elsewhere. Although the same report found the unemployment rate at a 16-year low, consumers may have been alarmed by the report of job losses. The drop last week could also be related to other factors and could represent a short-term shift that could quickly reverse course — as it did when the index reached zero in a July weekly average.