Consumer Confidence Drops for Fifth Straight Month, Conference Board Says

01:24 PM EST, 12/23/2025 (MT Newswires) -- US consumer confidence fell for a fifth straight month in December as views on current business conditions turned negative for the first time since September 2024, the Conference Board said Tuesday.

The consumer confidence index dipped 3.8 points sequentially to 89.1 this month. The consensus was for a 91 print in a Bloomberg survey.

The November reading was revised higher to 92.9, taking into account responses after the recent federal government shutdown ended, according to the board, which previously reported last month's print at 88.7.

The present situation measure slumped 9.5 points to 116.8, with net views on business conditions turning negative for the first time since September last year, according to the Conference Board. The expectations component held steady at 70.7 even as two of the three components dipped, it said.

"Despite an upward revision in November related to the end of the shutdown, consumer confidence fell again in December and remained well below this year's January peak," Conference Board Chief Economist Dana Peterson said. "Four of five components of the overall index fell, while one was at a level signaling notable weakness."

The share of consumers saying jobs are "plentiful" minus the share saying jobs are "hard to get" continued to flag, the Conference Board said.

"The consumer confidence data, from this survey and others, has been very weak all year, but expectations are starting to improve," Jefferies Chief US Economist Thomas Simons said in a report e-mailed to MT Newswires. "Weak labor market conditions are still weighing on consumers' optimism toward finding a new job, but they expect better financial conditions in 2026."

Consumers' responses continued to skew pessimistic, but less so than November, "potentially due to fewer negative comments about prices and inflation, politics, as well as a rebound in positive responses about interest rates," Peterson said.

"We remain of the view that the most likely path forward is one where the disconnect between consumer pessimism and consumer spending persists," Simons said. "With less uncertainty due to tariffs, business confidence should improve, and consumers should feel somewhat less concerned about losing their jobs and having difficulty finding a new one."

Final results of a University of Michigan survey showed Friday that consumer sentiment improved in December after a four-month downturn, while inflation expectations hit 11-month lows.

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