Consumer Spending Update: Economic Confidence Drops Again in May
Economic confidence decreased to 90.7 in this month’s Rasmussen Reports Economic Index, nearly seven points lower than April. This marks the third consecutive monthly decline.
Enthusiasm about the economy surged under former President Donald Trump, reaching as high as 147.8 in January 2020 before tumbling after the coronavirus lockdown threw Americans out of work and closed many businesses. By November 2020, it had recovered to 126.4, but dropped sharply after President Joe Biden was elected. The index fell to 97.8 in February 2021 before beginning a three-month rebound that took the index to 123.7 in May 2021, but reached a low of 78.6 in July 2022.
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The survey of 1,500 American Adults was conducted April 30-May 2, 2024 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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