Consumer confidence in the U.K. dropped to the lowest level since the depths of the recession as government austerity measures start to take their toll, according Bloomberg. On Thursday, GfK NOP reported that its index of sentiment dropped to -31 in April from -28 the prior month, marking a 15-point decline since the reading of -16 one year earlier. The details of the report showed that all five sub-indices of the gauge were down, and GfK director Nick Moon said, “This is a significant drop, one that is bad news for the government and bad news for the economy.”
The gauge of consumers’ assessment of personal finances over the last year dropped four points to -23 and the view of the next 12 months slipped to -14, which was also a four-point drop. The index for major purchases, the outlook for the economy, and the current economic situation all fell by smaller amounts, reaching -31, -57, and -40, respectively. Moon warned that the bleak data “make the possibility of a double-dip recession increasingly real.”