The amounts: This month, the consumer confidence measure went up to 103.3 from 101.9 in July, which was changed, the Conference Board said Tuesday. That number is the best since February.
The Wall Street Journal polled economists and found that most of them thought the index would rise from its original reading of 100.3 in July to 101 in August.
Important facts: This number shows how consumers feel about the current state of the business. It went up from 133.1 to 134.4 in August.
A measure of confidence that looks ahead six months also went up, from 81.1 to 82.5.
Still, people were getting more worried about the job market.
Economists used a key measure to show that the job market was getting weaker.
The labor market gap, which is the difference between the number of people who say jobs are easy to find and the number of people who say jobs are hard to find, dropped from 17.1 in June to 16.4 in July.
A measure of plans to buy homes hit a new 12-year low in terms of its six-month moving average.
The number of consumers who thought there would be a decline was much lower than it was in 2023.
In the big picture, economists say that trust may have grown because of the chance that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates and because inflation is going down.
One more reason could have been that Democrats were feeling better after Vice President Kamala Harris beat President Joe Biden in the race for the White House. In August, the University of Michigan’s measure of consumer sentiment went up. They said this was because of the unexpected change in the presidential candidates.
On the other hand, experts will be concerned when people worry more about the job market. Some people are worried that the job market’s already slight weakness could get worse.
The Conference Board said, “Consumers were probably scared by the chaos in the financial markets in early August, as they were feeling less positive about the stock market.” “In August, 46.9% of consumers thought stock prices would go up over the next year, down from 50.6% in July, while 27.2% thought they would go down, up from 23.1%,” said Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board.
In the future: Daniel Vielhaber, an economist at Nationwide, said that the general thought among consumers is that the job market and economic growth will slow, but not quite to recessionary levels. This is because confidence is rising and worries about the job market are growing.
