U.S. Consumer Confidence Rebounds in June

The Conference Board's Index of Consumer Confidence Index strengthened 7.0% (11.5% y/y) to 109.7 following a 1.2% decline to 102.5 during June, revised from 102.3. It was the highest level of confidence since January 2022, up 15.1% from its recent low in July of last year. A reading of 104.1 for June had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey.

The Expectations Index strengthened 10.9% (20.5% y/y) to 79.3 following a 0.3% easing to 71.5 in May. The index was at the highest level in six months. The Present Situation Index rose 4.3% (5.5% y/y) to 155.3 following a 1.9% May decline to 148.6. It stood at the highest level since July 2021.

Consumers' assessment of current business conditions improved m/m as 23.7% of respondents characterized conditions as good in June, up from a low of 16.3% last July. Labor market readings were slightly better this month. The jobs gap, representing the difference between respondents indicating that jobs are plentiful versus those saying jobs are hard to get, rose to 34.4% from 30.7% in May. Calculated by Haver Analytics, this series has a 64% correlation with the unemployment rate over the last ten years. The jobs plentiful measure rose to 46.8%, but remained down from the March 2022 high of 56.7. The jobs hard to get measure was little changed at 12.4%, which was increased from a 10.5% low in February.

Consumers assessment of future business conditions improved as an increased 14.2% of respondents felt that conditions would get better in six months, up from a low of 13.2% in May. Sixteen percent of respondents felt there would be more jobs in six months, up from a low of 13.8% in May. A lessened 16.9% expected income to increase in six months, down from a high of 19.6% in October of last year.

The expected inflation rate in twelve months eased to 6.0% from 6.1% in May. It remained below the 7.9% high in June of last year, but it was above the 4.4% low in January 2020.

A lessened 59.8% of respondents felt that interest rates would be higher in twelve months while an increased 13.3% thought they would be lower. A higher 34.7% of respondents thought that stock prices would be higher in twelve months and a lessened 30.2% thought they would be lower versus a high of 44.7% in July of last year.

The share of respondents planning to buy a home within six months eased to 5.5%, below the October high of 7.4%. It nevertheless remained higher than its 4.5% low in July of last year. The percentage of respondents planning to buy a major appliance eased to 46.8% and has fallen from a high of 52.4% in October.

The Consumer Confidence data are available in Haver's CBDB database. The total indexes, which are indexed to 1985=100, appear in USECON, and market expectations are in AS1REPNA.