Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index

What Is Conference Board Consumer Confidence?

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index (CCI, FRED ticker CONCCONF) is a monthly survey-based measure of US consumer attitudes about current and future economic conditions. The Conference Board surveys approximately 5,000 households and aggregates responses across questions covering current business conditions, current employment availability, six-month-ahead business expectations, six-month-ahead employment expectations, and six-month-ahead income expectations.

The headline index is published alongside two sub-indices: the Present Situation Index (current conditions) and the Expectations Index (forward-looking). The two often diverge and provide different signals about consumer attitudes.

Why It Matters for Markets

Conference Board Consumer Confidence is one of the top-tier consumer-sentiment indicators. It moves consumer-discretionary equities (XLY) and consumer-staples equities (XLP) on release day, with the gap between the two responding to the strength of the sentiment signal. The 10-year Treasury reacts modestly on surprises.

Conference Board's emphasis on labour-market perceptions makes it particularly useful for tracking employment-channel dynamics in real time. The labor differential (jobs plentiful minus jobs hard to get) is one of the cleanest single labour-market-from-workers-perspective gauges.

How to Read the Print

Headline index vs sub-indices. The Present Situation Index captures current conditions; the Expectations Index captures forward-looking attitudes. The gap reveals dynamics: rising Expectations alongside flat Present Situation signals improving outlook; the reverse signals deteriorating outlook.

Labor differential. The single most important sub-component. Sustained declines in the labor differential have historically preceded recessions by 6-12 months.

Income expectations. A leading indicator of consumption growth. Rising income expectations support spending; falling expectations predict spending deceleration.

Inflation expectations (12 months). The Conference Board publishes 12-month inflation expectations, which feed into Fed reaction-function thinking alongside the New York Fed Survey of Consumer Expectations.

Historical Context

The Conference Board CCI peaked at 144 in 2000 during the dot-com boom. The 2008-2009 recession dropped it to 25. The 2010-2019 expansion saw a steady climb to 137 by early 2020 before the pandemic shock dropped it to 86.

Through 2024-2025, CCI has run in the 100-115 range — well above pandemic-era lows but below the late-2019 peak. The Expectations sub-index has been particularly volatile, dipping below 80 (the canonical recession-warning threshold) at multiple points in 2024 before recovering. The labor differential has remained positive but declining through the cycle, consistent with labour-market normalisation rather than collapse.