Present Situation Index
Categories: Marketing
How do we as a consuming society feel about our economic situation right now? If we were to ask that question of a hundred different people, we’d probably get many different answers. Or we could just go to one source and get one answer, which sounds a whole lot easier (and faster) than talking to a hundred people.
So what is this one source? It’s called the “present situation index,” and it’s a monthly subindex published by The Conference Board as a result of survey data they collect from approximately 5,000 households across the country.
In a nutshell, if the present situation index is positive, people are feeling good about the current economic sitch. And if it’s negative, that means people are feeling not so good. This info is already helpful on its own, but those smart cookies over at The Conference Board take things one step further. They combine the present situation index with another subindex (the “expectations index”) and together, those form the ever-popular Consumer Confidence Index, which tells us how optimistic (or not) people are about the future of the economy.
