The FINANCIAL — Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index was -11 for the week ending Aug. 16, similar to the index’s readings over the past several weeks.
Aside from a -14 reading near the end of July, weekly index figures have been either -11 or -12 since late June. Confidence is down quite a bit from earlier in 2015, when readings were in positive territory. However, confidence today is much higher than it was from 2008 to 2012.
Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index is the average of two components: how Americans rate the current economy and whether they say the economy is “getting better” or “getting worse.” The index’s theoretical maximum is +100, if all Americans rate the economy as positive and improving, while the theoretical minimum is -100, if all Americans rate the economy as negative and getting worse.
For the week ending Aug. 16, the current conditions component averaged -6, the same as the previous week, as a result of 23% of Americans saying the economy is “excellent” or “good” and 29% saying it is “poor.” The economic outlook component, meanwhile, climbed three points to a score of -15, the result of 40% of Americans saying the economy is getting better and 55% saying it is getting worse. However, this change is still within the margin of sampling error, and thus should not be viewed as meaningful unless it persists in the coming week.
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