Regional economic report: Consumer confidence inching up; young people most pessimistic

Mary Ann Thomas | Saturday, October 3, 2020 9:01 a.m.

Rob Amen | Tribune-Review

Consumer confidence in Southwestern Pennsylvania is still down but continues to rise from its lowest point during the pandemic in July. The most pessimistic group is young people, according to an analysis released Friday by the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.

The report gauges sentiments toward the overall economy and residents’ personal economic situation.

For the report, the Allegheny Conference worked with Schmidt Market Research and drew on opinions from 5,000 Southwestern Pennsylvania residents. The Allegheny Conference has been tracking consumer confidence since the beginning of the regional outbreak of covid-19 in March.

Among the major findings of the report developed by Vera Krekanova, chief strategy and research officer at the Conference: “Confidence toward current personal economic situation continues to hold steady. Consumers continue to worry about their employment situation, with only 19% feeling positive about their continued job prospects, compared to 48% feeling the same in April. On the other hand, the share of consumers feeling positive about their personal finances continues to be around 40%.”

“This matches trends nationally as consumer confidence plummeted during the pandemic,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist for PNC Financial Services Group.

Since the pandemic hit with high job losses, about half of the jobs lost have been added back, he noted.

Faucher expects it will take two to three years until employment returns to pre-pandemic levels.

“We’ll continue to see improvement but will be a long road back.”

The Allegheny Conference’s report found that positive sentiments toward long-term personal economic situations were among the strongest of the consumer confidence measures. However, young adults were the least optimistic about current and future economic conditions

“Younger workers proportionally lost more jobs in restaurants, hotels and retail stores,” Faucher said.

With similar findings of the Allegheny Conference report is the slight increases in consumer confidence for tourism in the state, said Carrie Fischer Lepore, deputy secretary for marketing, tourism, and film at the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development.

“The loss to Pennsylvania tourism has been devastating because of the pandemic,” she said, “however, there are few glimmers of hope on the horizon.”