New survey results show Alaskans’ confidence in the economy is at nearly the lowest point since the survey began 16 years ago.
Pollster Ivan Moore of Alaska Survey Research said Alaskans are decidedly pessimistic about their economic conditions.
“We're at a lower point than we were at any point during the COVID years — 2020, 2021, 2022," he said. "We are lower than that, which is extraordinary, really, when you think about it.”
Moore has been asking Alaskans four times a year how they’d rate the economy of their community and the state as a whole. Typically, he said, Alaskans feel better about the economy when oil prices are high. But they’re high now, and Moore said it doesn’t seem to be boosting morale.
“Obviously, people are feeling the bite of unresolved cost-of-living issues and the price of gas — obviously, right now, with the war in Iran — and the lingering effect of post-COVID inflation," Moore said.
He launched the Alaska Confidence Index in 2010 with an economic consulting firm as a sponsor. He’s kept it going as part of an online survey of 750 Alaskans that he conducts quarterly.
Nationally, consumer confidence is also relatively low, at levels similar to those recorded during the covid pandemic.
Economists watch confidence indexes as an indicator of future spending trends and economic growth.
