The FINANCIAL — Americans’ evaluation of the U.S. economy was steady last week, with Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index averaging -9. This score is similar to all weekly figures since the last week of July. Economic confidence remains stronger than it generally was in April, May, June and the first three weeks of July. Over that period, the index averaged -14, falling as low as -17 at three points.
Economic confidence climbed to its current level over the week of July 25-31, when Democrats’ confidence in the economy rallied in response to the Democratic National Convention. While this upswing ended the index’s general downward drift, it remains well below where it stood in early 2015, when it reached as high as +5 in late January. The precipitous fall of gas prices in late 2014 most likely played a significant role in the surging confidence at that time. But as gas prices rose, albeit modestly, in the ensuing months, confidence fell back into negative territory, according to Gallup.
Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index is the average of two components: how Americans rate current economic conditions and whether they feel the economy is improving or getting worse. The index has a theoretical maximum of +100 if all Americans say the economy is doing well and improving, and a theoretical minimum of -100 if all Americans say the economy is doing poorly and getting worse.
Over the week of Sept. 12-18, just as many Americans rated the current state of the economy positively as did negatively, with 28% describing present economic conditions as “good” or “excellent,” and 28% instead saying conditions are “poor.” This brought the current conditions score to 0 for the week, compared with -4 the prior week.
Meanwhile, 39% of U.S. adults said economic conditions in the U.S. were “getting better” last week and 56% said they were “getting worse,” resulting in an economic outlook score of -17, compared with -20 the prior week.
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