Advances in economic sentiment accelerated this week, with the Consumer Comfort Index posting its strongest year-to-date growth in 35 years of weekly data. Each of its component measures built on already impressive 2021 gains.

This week’s advance, in particular, is led by Americans’ ratings of their personal finances, now nearly fully recovered from their unprecedented pandemic plunge last year.

At 53.9 on its 0-100 scale, the CCI is up 2.0 points this week and 5.3 points in the past month, its largest one-month gain since the end of last summer. It’s up a cumulative 10.7 points in the past three months – the largest such gain in ongoing weekly data since late 1985 – and up 19.2 points from a nearly six-year low in the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic last spring.

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