Consumer confidence: which numbers are real, and where to get them
Confidence indices move markets and headlines, yet almost every citation is second-hand. Here are the primary series, their methods, and how to read them against a single company.
Updated 27 Aug 2026 · sources re-checked
Key takeaways
- Two US indices dominate coverage and they are not interchangeable: Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment and the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index use different questions and weight the labour market differently.
- Michigan's series runs monthly back to 1946 and publishes full question wording and tables, which makes it the better citation when wording matters.
- For cross-country work use the OECD's amplitude-adjusted indicator or the European Commission's harmonised balances rather than stitching national series together.
- FRED is the fastest route to a chart, but the citation belongs to the originating agency series listed on the FRED page, not to FRED.
- Macro confidence never explains one company: pair it with company-level complaint and review volume before drawing a conclusion.
Consumer confidence is one of the most quoted and least verified numbers in business writing. A single monthly release gets summarised, rounded, reframed as a trend and then cited third-hand for months. The underlying data is free, documented and published by named institutions, so there is no reason to work from the summary.
The two US indices are not the same measure
The University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers produces the Index of Consumer Sentiment from five core questions on personal finances and business conditions, and has run monthly since 1946. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index leans more heavily on how respondents assess jobs — whether they are 'plentiful' or 'hard to get' — which is why it can diverge sharply from Michigan when the labour market and prices move in opposite directions.
Why the divergence matters to you
If two respected indices disagree in the same month, a story that cites only one is not describing consumer confidence — it is describing one questionnaire. Name the index, the release date and the value, and readers can check you.
Comparing countries without inventing a trend
- OECD publishes an amplitude-adjusted Consumer Confidence Indicator so member countries sit on a comparable scale.
- The European Commission's Business and Consumer Surveys use a common questionnaire across member states and publish the balances plus methodology.
- National statistical offices remain the authority for their own country's level; use the harmonised series only for comparison.
Trust in institutions is a different construct again. Pew Research Center and Gallup track confidence in business, banks and technology companies with question wording held stable over decades — which is exactly what makes the trend, rather than any single reading, the usable signal.
Bringing macro data down to one company
Confidence indices measure the mood of a population, not the performance of a firm. The link has to be built from company-level records: complaint volume in the CFPB database, recall notices at NHTSA or CPSC, review volume and language on the platforms, and the company's own filings. Macro confidence sets the backdrop against which a company's own numbers look better or worse than they are.
A confidence index tells you the weather. It does not tell you whether this particular roof leaks.
OpenWebReview editorial note
Verify it yourself in twenty minutes
- Open the Michigan data tables and note the latest Index of Consumer Sentiment value and the survey month.
- Open the Conference Board release for the same month and compare the direction of change.
- Pull the same period from the OECD or European Commission series if your subject trades outside the US.
- Find the originating series on FRED and record its exact series ID for your citation.
- Overlay the company's own complaint or recall counts for the same months before writing a causal sentence.