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January 28, 2015

Muted consumer confidence

  • Consumers still not yet feeling recovery in their wallets – only 9% see household financial situation improve over last month
  • Around twice as many people in each region of Britain still feel they are getting worse off instead of better off
  • Three of eight consumer confidence metrics fall in January – including both house price measures

The YouGov/Cebr Consumer Confidence Index rose only slightly in January as households’ economic optimism remains muted. The Index increased from 109.7 to 110.7 – and the three month average to January is 110.6 – marginally higher than the three months to January 2014 when it was 110.2.

 

Three of the eight measures fell during January, including both the forward and backward-looking house price metrics. Five measures increased, including both for house hold finances and job security.

 

However, despite the small rise in the household finance metrics, more people still feel they are getting worse off each month than feel they are better off. Moreover, around twice as many people in every British region feel their household finances have deteriorated as feel they have improved over the previous thirty days.

 

Stephen Harmston, Head of YouGov Reports: ‘It is quite a bleak picture. Consumer confidence has dropped away from its highpoint of last spring and summer as the housing market stutters and household finances are too stretched to pick up the slack and generate optimism. Despite talk of the recovery gaining ground, consumer confidence is stuck at similar levels as this time last year. At the root of this is that household finances are not felt to be improving, with around twice as many people in each British region saying they are getting worse off as are getting better off. The fall in energy prices has not fed through to consumers and they still don’t feel the recovery in their wallets, and this is as true of people in London as those in Liverpool or Lanarkshire.

 

Charles Davis, Director at the Centre for Economics and Business Research: ‘Although today’s GDP figures confirmed the fastest growth since before the financial crisis, the economy risks slowing in early 2015 as confidence falls back. More importantly, we are still struggling to see clear signs that consumers feel the benefit of faster growth in the wider economy. Logic says this should start to change as pay growth finally runs ahead of inflation. But it will take time for UK households to make up years of lost growth from the aftermath of the crisis. As the election approaches consumers still don’t feel like they have reached economic “escape velocity”.’

 

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About YouGov:

 

YouGov is an international, full-service market research agency which is considered the pioneer of market research through online methods. Our suite of syndicated, proprietary data products includes: BrandIndex, the daily brand perception tracker; Profiles, our new tool for media planning, market segmentation and forecasting and Reports which provide comprehensive market intelligence on a range of sectors. The market-leading YouGov Omnibus provides a fast and cost- effective service for obtaining answers to research questions from both national and selected samples. Our custom research business conducts a wide range of quantative and qualitative research, tailored to our specialist teams to meet our clients’ specific requirements.

 

YouGov is considered a pioneer of online market research and has a panel of 2.5 million people worldwide, including over 350,000 people in the UK representing all ages, socio-economic groups and other demographic types.

 

As the most quoted market research agency in the UK, YouGov has a well-documented and published track record illustrating the accuracy of its survey methods.

 

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