Utah consumer sentiment increased in November, survey finds

Dec 4, 2024, 4:00 PM | Updated: Dec 5, 2024, 1:29 pm

FILE: People walk through the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)

(Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)

BY MARIAH MAYNES

Digital Content Producer

SALT LAKE CITY — The University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute found that Utah consumer sentiment increased in Nov. 2024.

Consumer sentiment relates to feelings people have about the economy. More positive feelings mean better consumer sentiment.

A press release said that Utah consumer sentiment increased by 9.1% between Oct. and Nov. The second-largest growth in positive sentiment since Nov. 2020.

“The large monthly change in Utah consumer sentiment appears to be correlated with the presidential election,” said Phil Dean, chief economist at the Kem C. Gardner Institute.

Dean said analysts will continue watching data to determine if the trend is long-term or short-lived.

Utah consumer sentiment survey

The survey asked seven questions, which covered current and expected future economic conditions.

According to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, five of the questions were the same as those asked in the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumer Sentiment.

University of Michigan’s survey had similar results, reporting a much smaller, but still increased consumer sentiment among Americans. During the same period as the U of U’s survey, American consumer sentiment increased 1.8%

The other two questions the U of U asked referred to economic conditions in the U.S., as opposed to focusing on Utah.

Survey interviews were conducted over the phone. According to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, a total of 402 people were surveyed. Call selection was proportional to the size of each of Utah’s 29 counties.

After researchers gathered answers, they used them to calculate index scores. Positive outlooks were given higher scores and negative outlooks correlated to lower scores. The scores gave researchers numbers to use in their calculations.