Ipsos CASH Index: Finds New Low At 61.5
Third Straight Drop In Twice-Monthly Study
Ipsos CASH Index Dropped By 25 Points Between May And November 2002, Now IT HAS Dropped Nearly 15 More Points After A Brief Plateau;
It's A Top-Down Consumer Recession, With Macro-Economic Worries But Not Consumer Experience With Spending, Investing Or Job Security Woes
Does That Presage A Big Consumer Bounce Once War Worries Clarify?
Washington, D.C. -- How low will consumer attitudes go?
The Ipsos US National CASH Index (measuring Consumer Attitudes and Spending by Household) stands at 61.5, down 38.5 points since the Index was inaugurated in January, 2002. The CASH Index dropped 25 points between mid-March and early November 2002 (where it had settled on a plateau for a couple of months leading up to the midterm elections), and now it has dropped nearly 15 more points since then.
All the decline in the past few months from where the index stood at its previous plateau (the Ipsos CASH Index stood at 74.9 in early November 2002) has come among the four broadest and least specific measures of consumer attitudes--state of the local economy now and in the near future, and the state of respondents' personal finances now and in the near future.
Attitudes about specific practical aspects of respondents' lives--such as investments and the household budgets--have actually improved marginally since November, while other specifics (job security issues in particular) are no lower now than they were in surveys conducted October 15-November 3, just prior to the midterm elections that proved so gratifying to successful Republican candidates and the White House.
The decline in consumer attitudes since November 2002 is very top-down in nature, driven by lack of clarity about the direction of the local economy and growing concerns about current personal finances in general. That suggests it is possible--given the lack of specific negative events in people's personal finances, household budgets and investments--that once the situation in Iraq is clarified one way or the other, America could see a consumer-driven bounce back.
Interviews for the latest polling were conducted between February 4 to 6 and February 18 to 20, 2003. The margin of error for the questions on each rolling average of two consecutive surveys totaling 2000 adults is +/-2.2%, nineteen times out of twenty.
For more information on this release, please contact:
Thomas Riehle
President, Ipsos Public Affairs
202.463.7300
