The falloff in confidence was minor, as the Sentiment Index has been virtually unchanged for the past three months.

The persistent strength has been due to favorable assessments of jobs and incomes. While consumers anticipated rising interest rates during the year ahead, those expected increases were associated with a modest decline in longer term prospects for the national economy. For the year ahead, consumers still anticipated that the economy would produce small additional declines in the unemployment rate as well as higher wage gains. Consumers also anticipated an uptick in inflation during the year ahead, partly due to rising energy prices and partly due to tariffs.