Consumer confidence has slipped in March, according to preliminary survey results released Friday by the University of Michigan.
The Index of Consumer Sentiment fell from 95.4 percent in February to 91.2 in March.
It now appears that soaring consumer sentiment in the first months of the year was exaggerated, but the overall trend is still for Americans to feel better about the economy. The consumer sentiment index is up 14 percent annually, an improvement mirrored in other surveys.
The decline in consumer optimism was attributable to lower- and middle-income households, said Richard Curtin, the survey’s chief economist. Higher-income earners felt better about the economy.
“The renewed concerns expressed by lower and middle income households mainly involved income declines and higher utility costs as well as disruptions to shopping and businesses due to the harsh winter,” Curtin said in a release of the data.
Job gains continued to accelerate throughout the winter, with the economy adding 295,000 payroll jobs in February. Other indicators, however, have gone in the opposite direction. Retail sales fell 0.6 percent in February, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. First-time claims for unemployment benefits have also increased in recent weeks, with the four-week moving average of jobless claims above 300,000.
Despite energy prices dragging down prices in the most recent data, consumer inflation expectations remain stable. Consumers’ longer-term expectations of inflation factor heavily into the Federal Reserve’s analysis of inflation pressures as the central bank moves toward raising short-term interest rates for the first time since 2008.
The survey of consumers is an ongoing nationally representative survey based on roughly 500 telephone interviews with adults.
