Fed Survey of Households

Every month the New York Fed interviews a rolling group of 1200 people to produce a detailed Survey of Consumer Expectations.

Interested parties can download the Survey Questionnaire PDF.

The Fed states:

Where existing surveys look at consumer sentiment and the decisions households make, their coverage of household expectations is limited; the Survey of Consumer Expectations seeks to collect information on a wide variety of consumer expectations - including inflation, future earnings, household income, house prices, access to credit, layoff risk and reemployment prospects, and US economic conditions overall. Through a set of quarterly special surveys it also aims to focus in depth on special topics such as household finances as well as labor and housing market issues and outcomes.

NY Fed - One Year Look Ahead Spending Survey Projections

Projections

• High-end spending projections have been slowly drifting lower for quite some time, but the decline became more noticeable about a year ago.
• Median spending projections took a sustained turn for the worse in December of 2014.
• Low-end spending projections to a sustained dive starting November of 2014.

Given the Fed places so much faith in various consumer confidence numbers, I have a simple question: Why don't they believe their own survey?