Consumer Confidence At a High Since 2004
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Tuesday, October 31, 2006; 6:26 PM
Spurred in part by lower gas prices and higher stock prices, consumer confidence has surged recently and is now at its best level in nearly three years.
The Washington Post-ABC News Consumer Comfort Index (CCI) stands at -3 on its scale of -100 to +100, up 10 points over the past month and 16 points better than it was following this summer's gas price spike. With only one week to go before critical midterm elections, confidence is higher than it's been at any point since January 2004.
Improved consumer confidence is perhaps welcome news for President Bush and congressional Republicans, who've lately tried to shift voters' focus to the economy and away from the war in Iraq. However, whether improved economic sentiment will change the dynamic of the upcoming congressional election isn't clear. (In the latest Post-ABC poll, 27 percent of registered voters said Iraq is the single most important issue to their '06 vote, 19 percent cited the economy.)
In 2002, confidence was significantly lower than it is now and in 1998 it was substantially higher, and in neither election was the Republican congressional majority seriously threatened.
But this year, in a Post-ABC poll released last week, voters trust Democrats over Republicans to handle the economy by a nine-point margin and among those who say the economy is their top voting issue, Democratic House candidates are favored over Republicans by nearly 20 points.
The CCI is based on the public's assessments of their personal finances, the buying climate and the state of the national economy. Americans' rating of the national economy is at its highest level since January 2004 and the gauge on personal finances is as high as it's been since the spring of 2002, boosting the Post-ABC index. While improved recently, the buying climate is about what it was in June.
Overall, the Post-ABC index is significantly higher than its average for the year, -11, and its 20-year average, -9. There's a large partisan gap in confidence about current economic conditions: The CCI is +40 among Republicans, but -20 among Democrats and -16 among independents. That Democratic-Republican gap is about what it's been all year, which is nearly double its 16-year average.
