US Consumer Confidence Jumps to 7 ½-Year High in January

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

WASHINGTON — Jan 27, 2015, 11:12 AM ET
By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer

U.S. consumers welcomed the new year with a surge in confidence.

The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its consumer confidence index climbed this month to 102.9, highest level since August 2007 — four months before the start of the Great Recession. January's figure was up from a revised 93.1 in December.

"Consumers started the year in a buoyant mood," Andrew Hunter, an analyst at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note.

Americans haven't felt this good about current economic conditions since January 2008. And they are the most optimistic they've been since February 2011 about business conditions over the next six months.

The Conference Board also found that 20.5 percent of consumers surveyed described jobs as "plentiful" — the biggest share in nearly seven years. The figure had dropped as low as 3.1 percent in November and December 2009.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-consumer-confidence-jumps-year-high-january-28514470

[snappyturtle]

1. Isn't it odd that this report for January comes out before January is over?

Maybe those after Christmas discounts and going out of business sales were hit too hard to delay the report.



EDIT:The hoopla is dampened by the last paragraph at the OP link....which makes my reasons halfway plausible. imho

Absent from the economic success story so far are significant wage gains: Adjusted for inflation, hourly earnings for private-sector employees were the same last month as they'd been in December 2008.

[Andy823]

2. Here is my view

The last paragraph you refer to really has nothing to do with the rest of the article, which is pretty positive. Yes wages are not going up, and as long as republicans are in congress the national wage will NOT go up, they won't allow it. The only way to get a higher minimum wage is to protest at the state level, write letter to your reps at the state level, and get out and get the higher wage issue on the ballot. Those states that had let voters vote on their state minimum wage found that the the people voted FOR those increases. If every state with low minimum wages let the people vote, the people would vote FOR high wages. Get it on the ballots and let the people make the changes needed by voting.

The rest of the article is a really about things getting better, and the people feeling better about it. Pretty positive if you ask me.