WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 U.S. consumer confidence declined sharply in January, hitting the lowest level since 2014 as Americans grow increasingly concerned about their financial prospects.<\/p>\n
The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index cratered 9.7 points to 84.5 in January, falling below even the lowest readings during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
A measure of Americans\u2019 short-term expectations for their income, business conditions and the job market<\/a> tumbled 9.5 points to 65.1, well below 80, the marker that can signal a recession ahead. It\u2019s the 12th consecutive month that reading has come in under 80.<\/p>\n Consumers\u2019 assessments of their current economic situation slid by 9.9 points to 113.7.<\/p>\n \u201cConfidence collapsed in January, as consumer concerns about both the present situation and expectations for the future deepened,\u201d said Dana Peterson, the Conference Board\u2019s chief economist. \u201dAll five components of the index deteriorated, driving the overall index to its lowest level since May 2014 \u2014 surpassing its COVID19 pandemic depths.\u201d<\/p>\n Respondents\u2019 references to inflation, including gas and grocery prices, remained elevated. Mentions of tariffs and trade, politics, and the labor market also rose in January as did comments about health insurance and war.<\/p>\n Perceptions of the job market also declined this month.<\/p>\n The conference board\u2019s survey reported that 23.9% of consumers said jobs were \u201cplentiful,\u201d down from 27.5% in December. Also, 20.8% of consumers said jobs were \u201chard to get,\u201d up from 19.1% the month previous.<\/p>\n The country\u2019s labor market has been stuck in a \u201clow hire, low fire\u201d state, economists say, as businesses stand pat due to uncertainty over Trump\u2019s tariffs and the lingering effects of elevated interest rates.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, the government reported that employers added just 50,000 jobs in December<\/a>, nearly unchanged from 56,000 in November. The unemployment rate is 4.4%.<\/p>\n Job gains have been subdued all year, particularly after April\u2019s \u201cliberation day\u201d tariff announcement by Trump. The economy gained just 584,000 jobs in 2025, sharply lower than that more than 2 million added in 2024. <\/p>\n The softening job markets comes even as the U.S. economy keeps growing, often beyond projections. <\/p>\n Powered by strong consumer spending<\/a>, the U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in two years<\/a> from July through September, according to the government\u2019s latest estimate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 U.S. consumer confidence declined sharply in January, hitting the lowest level since 2014 as Americans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,141,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-394512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}