BAD TREND LINES …
Consumer comfort took another step in the wrong direction last week … while the index’s broader quarterly trend lines showed stalled momentum in the U.S. economy.
Bloomberg’s Consumer Comfort Index (CCI) – which measures consumer comfort on a scale of zero to 100 – slipped to 42.6 from 42.8 last week. That’s a new low for 2016, one driven by “worsening ratings of personal finances” and “deteriorating (economic) confidence, in particular, among Republicans.”
The report also laid bare the lack of forward economic motion achieved by last month’s positive jobs report.
“These latest results follow a generally positive jobs report,” analysts wrote in their release (.pdf here). “But jobs growth to some extent has been concentrated in low-paying retail and restaurant jobs, underemployment is up and wage growth remains a persistent consumer woe.”
Indeed …
The weekly data also underscored less-than-positive quarterly trend lines – with the index declining to 43.9 from its post-recessionary peak of 44.7 during the first quarter of 2015.
Take a look …
Hmmmmm …
We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: When it comes to the economy, we wish there were more good news to report … we really do.
But numbers don’t lie …
Oh, and as we pointed out yesterday, raising the minimum wage isn’t the answer … not by a long shot.
For the American economy to truly grow and thrive, our government must abandon its perpetual incentivizing of dependency, status quo deficit spending, crony capitalism (a.k.a corporate welfare), invasive bureaucracy, reckless global interventionism, open borders and more secretive central bank “stimuli.”