2008.08.17
Japan consumer confidence at all time low in July
Japan consumer confidence hits all time lows - again - in July (2008.08.13, Japan Economic News). Interesting stats from this article. Down quite a bit from a year ago. Can anyone with an economics background tell me what it means when everything except income growth falls? I would think that income growth remaining stagnant is the one good sign?
The general consumer confidence index figure fell from 32.6 in June to 31.4 in July, for a drop of 1.2 points.
The Consumer Confidence Index itself contains five scores, each of which is considered positive when above 50, and pessimistic when below the 50 mark. Here’s a breakdown for July’s figures, with the change from last month:
- Consumer Confidence Index: 31.4 (-1.2)
- Overall Livelihood: 29.3 (-1.0)
- Income Growth: 36.3 (-0.2)
- Employment: 30.7 (-2.1)
- Willingness to buy durable goods: 29.2 (-1.7)
As with May and June, we saw all five scores fall, though the “Income Growth” category is still falling at less of a rate than the others. For the sake of comparison, let’s take a look at how each score has changed compared to where they were a year ago:
- Consumer Confidence Index: -13.0
- Overall Livelihood: -18.4
- Income Growth: -5.6
- Employment: -16.8
- Willingness to buy durable goods: -16.8
