Floridians’ confidence rose to 69 in December, up three points from last month, reflecting a cautious optimism in the economy, according to a recent University of Florida (UF) survey.
Consumer confidence in December shot up in four of the five indexes used by survey takers, and declined in only one.
Taken as a whole, the UF survey reflects a changing mood that matches growing confidence across the nation, said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research.
“Floridians are most likely optimistic about continued improvement in the employment situation,” McCarty said. The decline in unemployment in November was .4 percent to 10 percent. The drop marked the first time in many months that economic sectors other than tourism led the way in employment increases. McCarty noted that employers in trade, transportation and utilities employed 34,800 more workers from October to November. However, he cautioned that many of these new jobs were in retail trade and may only reflect holiday seasonal hiring, which could disappear in early 2012.
McCarty also cited several other reasons for the change in mood. Retailers are offering big seasonal discounts to shoppers and mortgage interest rates are low. Housing prices may have “bottomed out” for a while, he said, hovering about around $130,100 for a single-family home. Gas prices are down, too. A gallon cost about 15 cents less than it did in November, though prices are expected to rise in 2012.
Overall, the mood for December is modestly upbeat. But McCarty cautioned that Floridians may find it hard to remain optimistic in the coming year, if Congress carries through with $1.2 trillion in mandatory spending cuts required by the debt ceiling deal in 2011.
The UF survey was conducted between Dec. 11 and Dec. 22, and reflects the responses of 411 individuals statewide.
