Jobs are harder to get and fewer are planning to buy homes or cars, says The Conference Board CEO

December 23, 2025 • 4m 12s
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 00:00.350
let's bring in the conference board CEO steve alden all right steve adland jump in the mix here important to this whole nice story we're trying to tell her that the president wants to hear about strong economy without inflation would be a labor market that is i guess strong but
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 00:16.350
not inflationary what what do you see going on here 'cause right now consumers are worried about the opposite they're worried about job loss AI everything like that
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 00:24.930
well so the conference board 's consumer confidence index declined for the fifth month in a row that's bad news however there was some good news in it remember there are two components to the consumer confidence index one is the present situations so how how the consumers are
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 00:41.330
feeling about their situation right now the other is the expectations index so what's going to happen in the next six months all year long the present situation has been pretty good pretty strong people are saying yeah i feel OK now but my expectation is that it's going to
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 00:58.550
decline for the first time all year it flipped so the expectation index seems to have bottomed out and they're now starting to say i'm hurting this is starting to feel bad right now now on top of that you have to bifurcate it because the income level is you know drives their
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 01:19.870
expectation and if you look at below hundred and twenty five thousand dollars annual income their consumer confidence went down but above that their consumer confidence actually went up and i think this is what the administration is looking at there are two economies
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 01:35.630
you see the K another
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 01:36.830
one is feeling great and one is not feeling so great so
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 01:40.270
steve we have now coming down the pike we'll talk more about this later on bigger tax refunds we also have possibly the obamacare health premiums going up not exactly the same crowd but some overlap there do you think the consumer is going to get a tailwind early next year or is
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 01:54.670
it going to be the opposite where all these factors come home to roost
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 01:58.850
the big spending is on the high end you know the the wealthy consumer is driving it right now and that's the important thing it you know what it depends on commodities right now gas is coming down that's helping food is still rising and so when you talk to these consumers they
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 02:12.650
say look we thought inflation was going to come down what they're really saying is we thought prices were going to come down and they're not seeing food prices come down in everyday prices now flipping
Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 02:23.090
over to what steve can i just steve i want to just hit you up for one second which is does all this emphasize also the regressive nature of tariffs as attacks that this is certainly burdening lower income americans much are they
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 02:35.870
are they showing up in tariffs are a regressive tax
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 02:38.110
but do we have them in in the prices tariffs
Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 02:41.230
in the prices tariffs are certainly in the prices you have a one
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 02:45.190
point you also have this you also have this small business thing steve which is you know individual consumers are also small businesses millions of small businesses sole proprietorships one or two employees they act as consumers they put their all other credits on our credit
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 02:59.470
their personal credit card those folks are really hurting big businesses doing fine small businesses hurting so it's main street
Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 03:06.390
i have an idea kelly that we can talk about some other time i don't know how to do it but there should be a small business rebate on tariffs but i don't know how they do that it reminds you of PPP PPP or some way kind of i don't know see but i think steve is on to that that that
Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 03:20.550
is it's not the sole piece but i believe it to be a piece of like you can say all right it's kind of washed out we're able to grow do all kinds of stuff with tariffs OK but it a certain sector of the this is
Kelly Evans (Anchor) 03:29.710
where the barry naps of the world would say that's why you gotta get the rate down you know steve can
Steve Liesman (Senior Economics Reporter) 03:34.230
you fly can you can you talk about good
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 03:37.390
yeah can can i say one more thing steve on this overheating thing it in a normal economy that past historical economy where it's manufacturing driven economy we would be overheated right now and the inflation thing would be more important this is a services driven number you
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 03:53.230
said it yourself that's the surprise it's the upside is in particularly in july in in august services and yet the labor market is weakening at the same time which means there is productivity in the service sector which is driving the numbers so this is a different kind of
Steve Odland (President & CEO) 04:09.950
economy than we've seen in the past