The Economy

U.S. Housing Sales Soar; Consumer Confidence Plummets

April 26, 2005

Perhaps people have been looking for a comfortable place in which to sit out tougher economic times. Americans snapped up new homes at an impressive pace last month. Sales of single-family homes in March were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of ...

John McClenahen

Perhaps people have been looking for a comfortable place in which to sit out tougher economic times.

Americans snapped up new homes at an impressive pace last month. Sales of single-family homes in March were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.431 million, 12.2% higher than February's revised rate of 1.275 million, the U.S. Commerce Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development jointly reported on April 26.

However, the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index continued its downward slide this month. The index fell to 97.7 (1985=100) in April, 5.3 percentage points below March's 103. "Less robust current conditions and a more cautious outlook have consumers feeling less confident in April than in March," says Lynn Franco, director of the Consumer Research Center at the Conference Board, a New York-based business research group.

Indeed, both the present situation and expectations components of the overall consumer confidence index declined in April. The present situation index fell to 113.6 from 117 in March, and the expectations index fell to 87.2 in April from 93.7 in March.

"The expectations index is now at its lowest level since July 2003, when it registered 86.3," notes Franco. "Looking ahead, consumers do not anticipate an improvement in economic growth nor in their incomes. And they expect an even tighter job market over the summer months."

The board's consumer confidence index -- along with other consumer confidence indexes -- is closely watched, since consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity.

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.