Buyers walk near a Nordstrom store at the Westfield UTC shopping center on January 31, 2025 in San Diego, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty images
Consumer confidence was still collapsed in March, the point of view of future conditions fell to the lowest level in more than a decade, the conference committee reported on Tuesday.
The Board of Directors Monthly confidence index Current conditions have slipped to 92.9, a drop of 7.2 points and the fourth consecutive monthly contraction. The economists interviewed by Dow Jones were looking for a reading of 93.5.
However, the measurement of future expectations told an even darker story, the index falling 9.6 points to 65.2, the lowest reading in 12 years and well below level 80 which is considered a signal for an upcoming recession.
The index measures the prospects of respondents to income, businesses and employment prospects.
“Consumers’ optimism on future income – which had been kept very strongly in recent months – has largely disappeared, suggesting concerns about the economy and the labor market has started to spread in consumer assessments of their personal situation,” said Stephanie Guichard, principal economist, global indicators of the board of directors.
The investigation comes in the midst of concerns about President Donald Trump’s plans for American import prices, which coincided with a volatile stock market and other surveys showing a decreasing feeling.
The drop in confidence was motivated by a drop in these 55 or over, but was distributed between income groups.
In addition to general pessimism, the prospects for the stock market have slipped heavily, with only 37.4% of respondents expecting higher capital prices over the next year. This has marked a decrease of 10 percentage points compared to February and was the first time that the view has become negative since the end of 2023.
Opinion on the labor market has also weakened, those expecting more jobs available to 16.7%, while those who expect less jobs increased to 28.5%. The respective readings of February was 18.8% and 26.6%.
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