U.S. consumer confidence is rising amid better job prospects

WASHINGTON – Americans’ outlook for the economy improved slightly in November, driven by expectations of lower inflation and increased employment.

The Conference Board, a business research group, said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 111.7 from 109.6 in October. Then there was a slight increase big profit in October.

Rising consumer confidence suggests Americans may spend more in the coming months, which would help spur economic growth. However, Americans have been spending at reasonable levels for most of the past two years even though confidence measures are low, which means sentiment surveys may not be as useful a guide to the direction of the economy as they have been in the past.

The increase came after President-elect Donald Trump won the presidential election. The Conference Board doesn’t break down its responses by party, but another measure of consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan showed that optimism about the economy increased among Republicans after the election.

A report from the Conference Board found that the percentage of Americans anticipating a recession in the next 12 months fell to its lowest level since the group began asking the question in July 2022. Consumer optimism about future employment rose to its highest level in nearly three years.

The survey found that Americans’ expectations for future inflation fell to their lowest level since March 2020, almost a year before consumer prices began to rise rapidly. When asked about their hopes for 2025, “consumers overwhelmingly ranked higher prices as their top concern and lower prices as their top wish for the new year,” the Conference Board said.

The report comes just hours after President-elect Donald Trump announced he would impose stiff tariffs of 25% on all imports from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% on imports from China. Economists and some retailers warn that implementing such tariffs would cause inflation.

“Households appear to be sticking their heads in the sand for now on potential consumer price increases from tariffs and deportations, or they believe Trump has not been serious about his campaign intentions,” Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in the customer note.