Gallup released a poll on "consumer confidence" today. Gallup's headline probably sums up how the lazy SCLM will report it:
Consumer Confidence Gets a Post-Election Bounce
But will it be enough to help retailers during the holidays?
More revealing are some numbers further down in the report, which suggest that half of Americans don't feel the economy is getting better--and that even among those who think it is, many think it's getting better for someone else, not themselves.
- 49% of consumers say current economic conditions are "getting better" while 43% say they are "getting worse"
- 55% expect the stock market to go up a little/lot in the next 6 months, vs 19% who expect it to go down
- 58% expect economic growth to go up in the next 6 months, vs 19% who expect it go down
The first numbers are the most subjective, and measure how people feel things are going to go for
them; the 2d and 3d sets are their predictions about more "objective" measures of the economy's performance--the stock market and GDP growth.
Conclusion: People seem considerably more pessimistic about their own prospects than those of the economy as a whole--which suggests that they think the benefits of economic growth will go to someone else.
While this will hardly come as a surprise to those critical of the Bush administration's tax cuts and overall economic policy, I think it provides something concrete to latch on to in criticizing those policies.
For the full report, see: http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=14044