Confidence survey has mixed results

New York City The Conference Board, which released its Consumer Confidence Index on Tuesday, reported that consumer confidence experienced improvement in March after hitting an all-time low in February.

The Index increased from 25.3 to 26.0, although one of its two individual components slightly declined.

The Consumer Confidence Index consists of the Present Situation Index, which decreased from 22.3 in February to 21.5 in March, and the Expectations Index, which rose from 27.3 in February to 28.9 in March.

Consumers who rated the present situation as “bad” increased in March, from 50.5% to 51.1%. Those who rated the current business conditions as “good” declined from 7% to 6.8%.

More consumers now think jobs are hard to get, as the percentage of consumers expressing this opinion increased from 46.9% in February to 48.7% in March. The percentage of consumers finding jobs “plentiful” remained at 4.6%.

Consumers were still pessimistic about economic conditions in the next six months in March, but mostly less so than in February. The percentage of consumers expecting business conditions to get worse in the next six months dropped from 40.7% to 39.1%, while the percentage of consumers expecting an improvement in business conditions in the next six months increased from 8.5% to 9.1%.

While according to The Conference Board any increase in the Consumer Confidence Index is positive for U.S. retailers, this month’s results are mixed as overall improvement was less than a full percentage point from last month’s all-time low.