The Economy

U.S. Consumer Index Suggests More Economic Growth

May 31, 2005

The "soft patch" that the U.S. economy has been in for the past few months may turn into solid growth in the months ahead. One indicator: Consumers' economic expectations, which had been had been declining since January of this year, looked up in May, ...

John McClenahen

The "soft patch" that the U.S. economy has been in for the past few months may turn into solid growth in the months ahead.

One indicator: Consumers' economic expectations, which had been had been declining since January of this year, looked up in May, says the Conference Board, a New York-based business research group. The expectations part of its consumer confidence index, reflecting economic attitudes about the next six months, improved to 92.5 in May from 86.7 in April.

That helped boost its overall index to 102.2 (1985=100) in May from 97.5 in April.

"Consumer confidence improved in May, gaining back nearly all the ground it lost in April," observes Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board's consumer research center. "Consumers' concerns about the economy and jobs have eased."

However, not all readings of the May 31st's report were as positive, with Merrill Lynch & Co., for example, saying "recent trends in sentiment still suggest that consumer spending growth will edge lower in the coming months." That would be significant, since consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of all U.S. economic activity.

The consumer confidence index is based upon a monthly survey of a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households and is conducted for the Conference Board by TNS NFO.

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.