Consumer sentiment levels, both nationally and in New York, are at or within reach of the highest readings seen in the last decade, according to a survey released this week. WAMC's Capital Region Bureau Chief Dave Lucas spoke with Don Levy, the director of the Siena College Research Institute.
"Consumer sentiment finish the fourth quarter of 2019 on a high note. The index sits at 93 points. That's up about 5 points since the previous quarter. And really, it shows a continuing robust level of confidence amongst consumers across New York State. We've been in that area of the 90s on the index reading now for the last three years, and really I think it's a nice time as a decade and to take a look back." Levy says the past decade dawned with consumers pessimistic and reluctant to spend.
"The current reading is 27 points over where we were ten years ago. So whereas ten years ago consumers were reluctant to spend, they were concerned about the economy, they're place in it. They were pessimistic. Now, we are far more optimistic despite the continuing concerns that we have about a variety of economic issues, but there is a strength right now to the economy both in New York state and across the nation.”
Levy points out that when it comes to the "future reading" – how consumers feel about the coming years – New York consumers are slightly more optimistic than people in all other states. "We continue to be concerned about gas and food prices over the course of the decade. At times concern over gas has dipped as low as 27 percent of New Yorkers concerned about gas and as high as 72 percent. Right now we're sitting close to the average, just below the average, at 41 percent of us are concerned about gas. Food concerns a little bit higher. The average over the decade has been in the 63 percent relative to concern about food. Right now, we're a little bit below that, 58 percent of us are concerned about food."
Through the years, Siena's index of consumer sentiment has also measured consumer buying plans. "Here we see a continuing strength in terms of the willingness, the plans if people have, to purchase major consumer items: cars, homes, home improvements. And these are significantly up from where they were five or ten years ago. In fact, when we look back ten years, there's about a hundred percent increase in the percentage of New Yorkers who plan to purchase these major consumer good compared to where we were ten years ago. We're up between 30 and about 60 percent relative to five years ago."
The survey (which can be viewed here)was conducted in mid-November by random telephone calls to 402 New York adults via landline and cell phones and 400 responses drawn from a proprietary online panel of New Yorkers. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percentage points.
