Nebraska Business and Consumer Confidence Indexes: August 4, 2017

Consumer and business confidence remained strong in Nebraska during July but fell from June levels. The Consumer Confidence Index – Nebraska (CCI-N) stood at 102.5 in July after a reading of 104.7 during June. Despite the decline of 2.2, the CCI-N remained above the neutral value of 100.0, indicating strong consumer confidence. The outlook of Nebraska businesses also was strong. The Business Confidence Index – Nebraska (BCI-N) fell to 105.1 in July from 109.2 in June. The BCI-N remained well above the neutral value in July, despite the 4.1 point decline, which indicates that business confidence is also strong in Nebraska. When asked about the most important issue facing their business, customer demand was mentioned by 34 percent of business respondents. Concerns about customer demand were most common in the agriculture and health care industries. Businesses also faced strong competition in both the labor and product markets. The availability and quality of labor was mentioned as the most important issue by 21 percent of respondents while 10 percent mentioned competition from other businesses. Households reported a variety of financial concerns with 56 percent choosing the cost of living including health care costs, taxes, major expenses (furniture, appliances, automobiles or college tuition) and the general cost of living. For the second consecutive month, the primary concern was the cost of health care and health care insurance. Twenty percent of households also reported that their primary financial issues relate to paying off debt or savings