The Conference Board

 


Consumer Confidence Survey Methodology

The Consumer Confidence survey is conducted for The Conference Board by TNS NFO(http://www.nfor.com/), one of TNS group of companies.

Data are available bi-monthly from 1967 through mid-1977.  Beginning June 1977, data are available monthly.  The questions asked to compute the indexes have remained constant throughout the history of the series.  The Index is based on responses to 5 questions included in the survey:

  1. Respondents appraisal of current business conditions.
  2. Respondents expectations regarding business conditions six months hence.
  3. Respondents appraisal of the current employment conditions.
  4. Respondents expectations regarding employment conditions six months hence.
  5. Respondents expectations regarding their total family income six months hence.

For each of the 5 questions, there are three response options: POSITIVE, NEGATIVE and NEUTRAL.

The response proportions to each question are seasonally adjusted.  For each of the five question (above), the POSITIVE figure is divided by the sum of the POSITIVE and NEGATIVE to yield a proportion, which we call the "RELATIVE" value.  For each question, the average RELATIVE for the calendar year 1985 is then used as a benchmark to yield the INDEX value for that question.  The Indexes are then averaged together as follows: Consumer Confidence Index: Average of all 5 Indexes; Present Situation Index: Average of indexes for questions 1 and 3; Expectations Index: Average of Indexes for questions 2, 4, and 5.