US consumers less confident as anxiety over future grows

By MATT OTT
AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumers were less confident again in June as persistent inflation and rising interest rates have Americans as pessimistic as they’ve been about the future in almost a decade. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index slipped to 98.7 in June from 103.2 in May and the second straight monthly decline. The business research group’s expectations index, based on consumers’ six-month outlook for income, business and labor market conditions, tumbled in June to 66.4 — its lowest level since 2013 — from 73.7 in May. It has been a consistently weak spot in the survey recently.