Consumer Confidence Trends Higher in May

""The Conference Board's"":http://www.conference-board.org/ Consumer Confidence Index continued to improve in May as Americans recovered from the economic shocks that plagued the year's first few months.

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The index, which turned around in April after experiencing a decline the month before, increased again to 76.2 (up from April's revised figure of 69.0).

""Consumer Confidence posted another gain this month and is now at a five-year high,"" said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at the Conference Board. ""Consumers' assessment of current business and labor-market [COLUMN_BREAK]

conditions was more positive and they were considerably more upbeat about future economic and job prospects.""

Franco added that ""[b]ack-to-back monthly gains suggest that consumer confidence is on the mend and may be regaining the traction it lost due to the fiscal cliff, payroll-tax hike, and sequester.""

Once again, consumers' appraisal of present-day conditions improved, with the Present Situation Index climbing to 66.7 from 61.0. Those saying business conditions are ""good"" increased to 18.8 percent, while those saying conditions are ""bad"" fell to 26.0 percent. Respondents' assessment of the labor market was also more upbeat than in April; the number of those claiming jobs are ""plentiful"" increase to 10.8 percent, while the number of those claiming jobs are ""hard to get"" dropped to 36.1 percent.

In addition, consumers showed greater optimism for the short-term future, with the Expectations Index rising to 82.4. Those expecting business conditions to improve over the next six months increased to 19.2 percent, while those expecting conditions to worsen fell to 12.1 percent. The number of those expecting jobs to increase in the near future rose to 16.8 percent; the proportion of consumers expecting their incomes to increase took a slight dip, falling one-fifth of a percentage point to 16.6 percent.