Consumer Confidence Hits 11-Year Low as Jobs Outlook Darkens

U.S. consumer confidence fell to 81.9 in September, down from 89.4 in August — the lowest reading since April 2014, according to the Conference Board's monthly survey. The decline landed after the Federal Reserve's first rate hike since 2023 and amid ongoing geopolitical tensions, and it hit the labor market component especially hard.

The survey's labor market differential — the gap between consumers who say jobs are "plentiful" and those who say jobs are "hard to get" — narrowed to its lowest level since February 2021. The share of respondents calling jobs plentiful fell 3.4 percentage points to 23.6%, also the weakest since February 2021, while the share seeing jobs as hard to get rose 2.4 points to 21.9%, the highest since January 2021.

For job seekers, that shift matters. The two percentages are now separated by barely 1.7 points, compared with the wide gaps that characterized the post-pandemic hiring boom. A consumer survey is not a payroll count, but it captures how households perceive hiring conditions — and those perceptions increasingly favor employers over candidates at the point of negotiation.

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index combines two components: how consumers rate their present situation and what they expect over the coming months. Both deteriorated in September. The Present Situation Index dropped 11.9 points to 109.3, the lowest since February 2021. The Expectations Index fell 4.6 points to 63.6, a third consecutive monthly decline and the lowest level since April 2025.

The Expectations Index has now stayed below 80 for twenty consecutive months. The Conference Board treats 80 as a threshold that often signals a recession within a year.

Views of current business conditions turned negative for the first time in two years. The share of respondents rating business conditions as "good" slipped 0.4 percentage points to 18.5%, while the share rating them "bad" rose 2.8 points to 20.4% — the first time negative assessments outnumbered positive ones in two years.

Expectations for the next six months weakened further. The share expecting business conditions to improve fell from 16.8% to 15.9%, while those expecting deterioration climbed from 23.1% to 25.4%. On employment specifically, 14.0% expect more jobs in the months ahead, down from 14.6%, and 28.4% expect fewer jobs — up 2.3 percentage points. That means Americans who expect job losses now outnumber those expecting job gains by roughly two to one.

The housing data inside the survey carried a more mixed signal. The share of respondents planning to buy a home within six months edged up to 5.4%. Within that group, plans to buy a newly constructed home fell to 0.4% and plans for an existing home fell to 2.4%, leaving 2.6% undecided between the two. Weak purchase intentions among undecided buyers point to continued softness in demand for construction and real-estate services employment, both sensitive to mortgage-rate expectations.

For workers, the practical readout is straightforward. Households are reporting the tightest perceived job availability in more than four years, expect fewer openings ahead, and have turned negative on current business conditions for the first time since 2023's survey baseline. The Expectations Index, stuck below the recession-signal threshold for twenty months, suggests consumers will keep tightening spending and job-switching appetite into next year unless the outlook improves.