The Daily Stat from Harvard Business Review

July 9, 2015 What Makes Americans Worry About the Economy? Gas Prices, Apparently Americans’ confidence in their nation’s economy appears to be heavily influenced by gasoline prices: When gas dropped to near $2 per gallon at the end of 2014, confidence was on the upswing; now that it has risen to an average of about $2.80, confidence is slightly below neutral — it’s at an average of minus-6 on a scale of minus-100 to 100 on Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index. There’s no single government action that can be cited as driving this year's confidence drop, and gas prices are an aspect of the economy that consumers come into direct contact with frequently, Gallup points out. SOURCE: Economic Confidence Index, Gas Prices Linked

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