Both consumers and investors are less confident about the economy than they were a year ago when the Lehman Brothers financial firm collapsed and Wall Street's woes became front-page news. Personal finances and the overall state of the economy are seen as weaker than they were then, but now there is less pessimism about the direction of the economy.
In between, of course, following economic confidence has been like following a roller coaster. Record lows were established in March, and there has been a slow and somewhat erratic rebuilding of confidence since that time.

• Today, eight percent (8%) of adults rate the economy as good or excellent. That’s down from 18% a year ago. Fifty-two percent (52%) rate the economy as poor, a figure that is similar to 12 months ago. Among investors, just six percent (6%) rate the economy as good or excellent, down from 23% a year ago.
• Thirty-one percent (31%) of adults rate their own finances as good or excellent. That’s down 11 points from a year ago. Forty-six percent (46%) of investors rate their finances as good or excellent, down 12 from September 14, 2008.
• Twenty percent (20%) of adults say their own finances are getting better, while 46% say they are getting worse. Both figures are down four points from a year ago. Among investors, those numbers are 25% and 38% respectively.
• As for the overall economy, 31% say it’s getting better, but 46% say the opposite. That’s a big improvement from a year ago when just 17% said the economy was getting better and 64% said worse.
• Investors are evenly divided about the direction of the economy: 37% say it's getting better, and 39% say worse. A year ago, just 22% thought things were getting better, while 58% were pessimistic about the trend.

Put it all together and the Rasmussen Consumer Index, at 78.4, is down eight points from a year ago. The Rasmussen Investor Index is down 12 points to 89.1. Both measures of daily economic confidence are up dramatically from lows reached in early March. The all-time low for the Consumer Index was 54.7. The Investor Index hit bottom at 52.5.

Rasmussen Reports measures consumer and investor confidence on a daily basis.

For John McCain, the crash of Lehman Brothers on Wall Street was worse than the Crash of 1929. Looking back over the course of the 2008 presidential campaign, it seems clear that the financial meltdown in mid-September was the final, decisive, event that secured Barack Obama’s path to the White House.

One year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, most voters (56%) continue to blame the nation’s current economic problems on the recession that started under President George W. Bush, while 37% blame the policies of President Obama.