The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index summarizes U.S. household views of current business and labor conditions and six-month expectations.
The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) is a monthly U.S. survey index published by The Conference Board. It summarizes households’ assessments of current business and employment conditions and their expectations for business conditions, employment, and family income six months ahead. The CCI measures reported attitudes, not actual spending, income, or employment.
This page concerns The Conference Board’s named U.S. index. Other organizations publish consumer-confidence or consumer-sentiment measures with different questions, samples, scales, and formulas.
The five headline questions cover:
Respondents can give positive, negative, or neutral answers. The Conference Board’s broader monthly report also covers topics such as buying plans and expectations for inflation, interest rates, and stock prices, but those additional responses are not all components of the headline CCI.
The survey is currently conducted online for The Conference Board by Toluna. Sampling and survey mode matter because a sentiment index depends on who is asked, when they respond, and how the sample is weighted.
For each headline question, the positive share is divided by the sum of positive and negative shares. Neutral responses are excluded from this relative-value denominator:
Each question’s relative value is seasonally adjusted and compared with its average relative value in 1985:
The headline CCI is the simple average of the five question indexes:
The Present Situation Index averages the first and third question indexes. The Expectations Index averages the second, fourth, and fifth. Because those subindexes contain two and three questions respectively, the headline CCI is not calculated by simply averaging the two published subindex levels.
Assume the five question-level indexes after adjustment and rebasing are:
| Question-level index | Illustrative value |
|---|---|
| Current business conditions | 110 |
| Business conditions in six months | 95 |
| Current employment conditions | 105 |
| Employment conditions in six months | 90 |
| Family income in six months | 100 |
The headline index would be:
The Present Situation Index would be 107.5, while the Expectations Index would be 95. A headline value of 100 can therefore conceal an important split: households may view current conditions as better than the base-period comparison while feeling less confident about the next six months.
These values are invented to demonstrate the construction. They are not a historical release.
Compare the level with the index’s own history and base convention. Do not compare a Conference Board level directly with a University of Michigan or OECD confidence level.
If CCI falls from 104 to 98, that is a decline of 6 index points, or about 5.8% relative to the previous level. It is not a decline of 6 percentage points in the share of confident consumers.
Determine whether the move came from present conditions, expectations, or both. Expectations can weaken before households report a comparable deterioration in current conditions.
The release describes responses collected during a defined survey window. Later events may not be reflected, and prior readings can be revised.
Consumer-facing businesses compare confidence with sales, orders, pricing, inventories, and customer traffic. A decline may support a cautious demand scenario, but disposable income, credit access, and inflation can offset or reinforce sentiment.
Analysts may use CCI components as timely context for household demand, labor perceptions, and earnings assumptions. The release can move markets when it differs from expectations, but the direction and duration of any reaction are uncertain.
Confidence provides survey evidence about household perceptions. It complements rather than replaces measured employment, prices, income, and consumer spending.
| Measure | Publisher or source | What it measures | Key distinction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer Confidence Index | The Conference Board | Current conditions and six-month expectations | Five-question U.S. index, 1985=100 |
| Index of Consumer Sentiment | University of Michigan | Household finances and economic expectations | Separate survey and formula; levels are not comparable with CCI |
| OECD Consumer Confidence Indicator | OECD standardized national survey data | Expected household consumption and saving conditions | Normalized around a long-term average of 100 |
| Retail sales | Government statistical data | Sales receipts at retailers | Transaction estimate, not reported sentiment |
| Personal consumption expenditures | National accounts | Household consumption spending | Broad expenditure measure, reported with a lag and subject to revision |
This page is educational and does not provide personalized investment, business, or economic-policy advice.