Prevailing pessimism regarding the economy was reflected by the general consumer confidence index and its sub-indices that retreated during November, according to a report conducted by the Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC). The IDSC's monthly report measures consumer confidence in economic policies and consumer opinion of the future through questions across three main areas: the household income level, confidence in economic policies and quality of life improvement expectations. The general index, that consolidates the three previous indicators, fell to 98.8 points in November, down 4.1 per cent from October, indicating public pessimism in the economy. The decline was due to the negative trend of two of the sub indices; confidence in economic policies which decreased by 4.9 per cent from last month settling at 85.8 points; and expectation of improvement in quality of life which fell by 6.1 per cent to 150.8 points. The household income level index rose however in November by 2.6 per cent to 59.7 points. The rise was attributed to the increase in the percentage of those who said they can afford to buy durable goods; 24.4 per cent compared to 20.2 per cent in October. The dip in confidence in economic policies reflected a decrease in the percentage of respondents who felt that the economic situation this year was better than last year; from 20.2 per cent in October to 18.1 last month. The quality of life expectation index declined, despite being the highest score among the three sub indices, revealing a decrease in the percentage of those surveyed who expected the economic situation of the country to improve. In October 48.3 per cent were optimistic, this slid to 46.5 per cent in November. The report, published Wednesday, showed that the eldest are the most optimistic. The over 50 bracket reached 100.6 points this month, while the 30-50 bracket stood at 98.8 points. Optimism was at its lowest among 18-30-year-olds on 93.3 points. The highly educated were the most pessimistic at 91.5 points, down 8.8 per cent from last month, followed by the illiterate whose index reached 95.2 points. Government employees were the most confident on 110.7 points, while private sector employees scored 85.1 points. The survey covered 1,000 men and women aged 18 years or older, each representing a household, through phone interviews. Scores were given on a range from 0 to 200. Above 100 indicated a positive evaluation of the queried subject, while scores below 100 showed a negative evaluation.
