Even with most of those surveyed being aware of the beginning of the current U.S. conflict with Iran, Utah’s consumer sentiment rose in March.
Conducted monthly by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah, the Zions Bank Consumer Sentiment Survey was up 3.1 percent from 79.1 in February to 81.5 in March. The Gardner Institute said the results were within the survey’s margin of error.
A similar survey conducted by the University of Michigan found that sentiment among Americans as a whole
fell 5.8 percent in March.
The University of Michigan conducted survey interviews between Feb. 17 and March 23, with about two-thirds completed after the start of the conflict in Iran. Likewise, the Zions Bank Consumer Sentiment survey collected interviews between Feb. 19 and March 25, with the same proportion of completed surveys following the start of the Iran hostilities.
“It’s great to see a slight uptick in consumer sentiment, and it’s particularly notable given the situation in Iran,” said Robert Spendlove, Zions Bank senior economist. “The data suggests that Utahns increased their confidence in local economic conditions despite the conflict. (Utahns) don’t feel like the country is on the right track as much as they’d like it to be, but they feel like, in their own lives and in the state of Utah, the economic conditions are a lot stronger.”
The increase in Utah consumer sentiment follows a slight drop in February preceded by a three-month streak of increases from November to January.
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 monthly Zions Bank Consumer Sentiment Survey can be accessed at https://gardner.utah.edu/zions-bank-consumer-sentiment-survey/.