Siena Poll: Consumer Confidence Highest in Five Years

6/4/2012 (Updated 10:56:48 PM)

(Source: Fox 40 Staff)

Despite the still shaky economy, consumer confidence in New York State is at it's highest level in almost five years.
 
It is now at the point where optimism outweighs pessimism among New Yorkers.  According to the Siena Research Institute, the survey points to the drop in gas prices as helping to boost consumer confidence.

That caused concern about fuel costs to decline by nine percentage points.

"Unemployment is still sticky high," said New York State Department of Labor Market Analyst for the Southern Tier Christian Harris.  "It (the economy) has improved from two to three years ago.  We have seen job gains since the low points of the recession but we still have a lot of ground to cover before we get to pre-recession levels."

Harris said most of the growth in the state have been in the larger metro areas like Rochester, Albany, New York City and Long Island.  A more metro-area specific consumer confidence student would really give a sense of where the Binghamton area stands.