Confidence in national economy tanks ahead of second quarter

BOULDER — Colorado business leaders are looking increasingly pessimistic about the national economy heading into the second quarter of 2022, but remain mildly optimistic about the state economy.

While the threat of COVID-19 wanes, new challenges such as inflation and the war in Ukraine have the business community on edge, according to the University of Colorado Boulder Leeds Business Research division’s quarterly Business Confidence Index released Friday. 

“As we exit one crisis, of course, we enter another,” said Brian Lewandowski, executive director of the research division.

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The quarterly report marks Colorado business leaders’ expectations for the state and national economies, industry sales, industry profits, hiring and business spending.

Overall, the index pinned business confidence at 53.9 ahead of the first quarter 2022, down 4.1 points from the previous quarter. A score of 50 is considered neutral and the index stood at a record low 29.7 in the first quarter of 2020 before hitting a record high of 67.3 in the third quarter of 2021.

The index rated confidence in the state economy at 51.9, national economy at 40.4, industry sales at 59.1, industry profits at 55, industry hiring at 60.4 and capital expenditures at 56.7.

Looking forward to the second quarter of 2022, the overall confidence index is 53.3

The index was developed by analyzing 195 responses to a survey conducted between March 1 and March 21.

The difference between business leaders’ outlook on the state economy and national economy is 11.5 points, the greatest gap in nine years.

Economists are noting “pretty significant drop offs” in national confidence surveys, and Colorado’s results “seem pretty consistent” with the nationwide attitude, said Rich Wobbekind, senior economist and faculty director of CU’s Business Research Division.

Inflation, which has brought with it some of the “highest headline price changes that we’ve seen in this country in the last 40 years … [and] casting a shadow of uncertainty about the near future of the economy,” Lewandowski said.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused previously unseen levels of uncertainty and volatility in the economy and that seems to have had a lasting impact on business confidence.

Business people are telling economists that they “have record breaking numbers but we’re not feeling good,” Wobbekind said.