supply chain issues and the effects of inflation have increasingly plagued the U.S. While the -33 readings in 2020 and today are the worst since the Great Recession, they are far from the lowest on record, -72 in October 2008.Line graph.
Gallup's Economic Confidence Index since December 2006. The latest reading of -33 in December 2021 is down slightly from -29 in November.
The current reading is the worst since April 2020 in the early weeks of the pandemic. Yet it is higher than the all-time-low -72 reading in October 2008.Although the latest ECI reading is identical to the one from April 2020, the economic conditions that are likely influencing these assessments are different.