Over 50% of respondents believe that job prospects will improve, while 29% say they won’t The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) consumer confidence survey is important because confident consumers buy more goods and services, providing a boost to the economy. But it’s also a barometer of how happy people are with the government’s management of the economy. With the general elections so near, could the consumer confidence survey provide some clues to the political future? Let’s take people’s perception about their employment prospects first. In December 2013, a few months before the last general elections and soon after the taper tantrum that unsettled India’s economy, only 29.1% of those surveyed said their economic condition had improved from what it was a year ago, while 34.4% said it had worsened. The rest said there had been no change in their job prospects. The net response, or those who thought their job prospects were brighter than what they were a year ago minus those who tho