Consumer confidence in the U.S. rose in March, and even exceeded economist predictions.
In the face of a bad February mark of 46.4 on the Conference Board’s measure of consumer sentiment, the confidence index hit 52.5 in March, exceeding analysts’ call for a 50 point level.
Consumers are still concerned over the nation’s high unemployment create officially pegged at 9.7% even though the real number is considered to be much higher. Their fears were stoked yesterday when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told NBC News that the unemployment rate is "still terribly high and is going to stay unacceptably high for a very long time" because of the damage caused by the recession.
"Just because this was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression," Geithner said, "a huge amount of damage was done to businesses and families across the country, and it’s going to take us a long time to heal that damage. "