Utah’s consumer sentiment rose 4.5 points (6.4 percent) in November, a significant rise compared to its lackluster performance over the past several months. The index rose from 69.1 in October to 73.6 in November, according to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute’s Survey of Utah Consumer Sentiment.
A similar survey by the University of Michigan found that sentiment fell 4 percent among Americans as a whole during the same period — from 63.8 to 61.3.
“The variation in the index is indicative of the uncertainty people feel about the Utah economy,” said Phil Dean, chief economist at the Gardner Institute. “Uncertainty and resiliency continue to be the economy’s watchwords.”
The Utah consumer confidence survey uses key questions from the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers. These questions measure residents’ views of the present economic situation and their expectations for the economy in the future. Data gathered from the key questions are used to create the consumer confidence index for Utah. Demographic questions are included in the questionnaire to allow for additional analysis of the data and to assess the representativeness of the sample.
The full results of the survey are available online at the Gardner Institute website, https://gardner.utah.edu.