Every month the New York Fed interviews a rolling group of 1200 people to produce a detailed Survey of Consumer Expectations.
Interested parties can download the Survey Questionnaire PDF.
The Fed states:
Where existing surveys look at consumer sentiment and the decisions households make, their coverage of household expectations is limited; the Survey of Consumer Expectations seeks to collect information on a wide variety of consumer expectations – including inflation, future earnings, household income, house prices, access to credit, layoff risk and reemployment prospects, and US economic conditions overall. Through a set of quarterly special surveys it also aims to focus in depth on special topics such as household finances as well as labor and housing market issues and outcomes.NY Fed - One Year Look Ahead Spending Survey Projections
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Projections
- High-end spending projections have been slowly drifting lower for quite some time, but the decline became more noticeable about a year ago.
- Median spending projections took a sustained turn for the worse in December of 2014.
- Low-end spending projections took a sustained dive starting November of 2014.
Given the Fed places so much faith in various consumer confidence numbers, I have a simple question: Why don't they believe their own survey?
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
