U.S. June Consumer Confidence slips on labor market perceptions
Contrasting a stronger preliminary June Michigan CSI, the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index has slipped to 93.0 in June from 98.4 in May. The contrast with the Michigan CSI comes after May data when the Michigan CSI remained weak but the Conference Board index bounced from 85.7 in April.
The Conference Board detail shows current conditions leading the drop, to 129.1, which is the weakest since September 2024, from 135.5, though 6-month expectations also slipped, to 69.0 from 73.6, though this is still above April’s 55.4.
The average 12-month inflation expectation continues to skip from its 7.0% peak seen in April after the tariff announcement, to 6.0% in June after slipping to 6.4% in May. The median view is 4.9% in June, down from 5.2% in April and 5.9% in May. The median below the average suggests some respondents are exceptionally pessimistic, perhaps on political bias.
Slippage in current conditions has been assisted by a more pessimistic view of the labor market, with the proportion seeing jobs as plentiful exceeding those seeing them as hard to get by 11.1%, down from 12.7% in May and the lowest since March 2021, though the fall is not alarming.
The Michigan CSI tends to be more sensitive to inflation expectations, but the Conference Board index is more sensitive to the labor market.
