POLL: Confidence Stalls in Low Territory

Consumer confidence held essentially steady this week, hovering near its lowest point in a year.

The ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index stands at -17 on its scale of +100 to -100. The index continues to reel from its nine-point nosedive from -11 to -20 two weeks ago, its biggest one-week drop in more than 20 years.

Click here for PDF with charts and data table.

Click here for more ABC News polls.

While the Fed may have placated interest rate worries and President Bush has promised help for those struggling from the subprime mortgage crisis, consumers still have plenty to worry about, including the housing market, relatively costly gas prices, instability in the stock market and political dissatisfaction led by the unpopular war in Iraq.

INDEX -- The index is calculated according to Americans' ratings of the national economy, personal finances and the buying climate. Thirty-three percent say the economy is in good shape, a little more than a third say it's a good time to buy and 56 percent say their personal finances are good. Each is below its 2007 average.

TREND -- The CCI bottomed out two weeks ago at -20, its steepest one-week slide in more than 20 years, and then flattened at -19 last week. At -17, it still remains significantly under its long-term average of -9 in 21 years of weekly polls. The index's all-time high was +38 in January 2000; its record low, -50 in February 1992.

GROUPS -- As usual the CCI is higher in better-off groups. It's +19 among higher-income adults compared with -54 among those with the lowest incomes, zero among those who've been to college while -53 among high-school dropouts and -11 among whites but -44 among blacks.

The gap between men and women, which had been unusually close for the past few weeks, opened up this week, with a CCI of -8 among men versus -25 among women.

Partisan differences remain: The index is +22 among Republicans, -29 among independents and -32 among Democrats.

Here's a closer look at the three components of the ABC/Post CCI: