What Is Consumer Confidence Data

Consumer confidence in five lines

Consumer confidence is a survey of how households feel about their jobs, their income and the months ahead, scored as an index. There are two in the United States. The Conference Board's lands on the last Tuesday of the month and the University of Michigan's on a Friday mid-month, with a final reading two weeks later, both at 10:00 in New York, 17:00 on the feed's clock. Each is a number against a fixed old year set at 100, so it is read as up or down on last month rather than as an amount. On 27 January 2026 the Conference Board minute moved the euro against the dollar 14.9 pips, where a pip is the fourth decimal place of the price; on 12 June the Michigan minute moved it 9.8.

A question on a card

Here is the idea as one card from the survey. Thousands of households get questions like this: six months from now, will jobs be easier to find, about the same, or harder. The better answers minus the worse answers, scaled against the old base year, is the index, so on this example card 18 minus 20 is a touch gloomier than even. The other questions are about money at home, prices, and whether now is a good time for a big purchase. It is feelings, asked before they turn into spending, which is why it sits on the calendar in front of the retail figure that counts what the same people then did.

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