This chart, which plots consumer confidence against incidences of news stories about the fiscal slope, finally shows the consumer affected by the uncertainty and fear from Congressional action (or lack thereof) tanking the economy. Since the summer, the consumer has been buoyed by a number of factors, including a recovery in housing prices and incremental [...]

Consumer confidence numbers have picked up steadily over the past three months, and Americans now feel better about the economy as a whole and their personal economic conditions. Further evidence for this can be seen in the rise in consumer spending in September, at twice the rate of the rise in personal income. Whether it’s [...]

Zeke Miller of Buzzfeed highlights this new wrinkle in President Obama’s stump speech: taking credit for some good economic numbers of late. “We were losing 800,000 jobs a month,” Obama began Wednesday evening in Athens, Ohio, building to a new, triumphant tone as he leaned into the microphone. “Now we’ve added more than 5 million [...]

Economic analysts are giddy about a recent spate of positive consumer-based indicators, on not only housing starts but consumer confidence, retail sales, auto sales and even unemployment. At the same time, in the same economy, the numbers run completely the other way when it comes to the corporate sector. Joe Weisenthal runs down the numbers. [...]

A series of economic data released today has pretty bad news for those hoping for a sustained recovery that will increase job and GDP growth. First of all, personal income nearly flatlined, rising just 0.1% in August, a number that, if annualized, would be below inflation. So real income is decreasing. Personal income came in [...]

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence index shot up today, rising from 61.3 in August to 70.3 in September. This typically correlates with a brighter outlook for the economy, and could lead to stronger consumer spending. However, it may be worthwhile to ignore the Conference Board’s index in the last couple months of an election cycle. [...]

The consumer confidence report released today was appallingly bad, with sentiment at its lowest level in three decades. With consumer spending 70% of the US economy, this bodes very poorly for future growth and employment. Whether or not this has anything to do with the elongated debate over the debt limit is debatable; but high [...]