Financial Fears Cause Florida Consumer Confidence To Drop

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GAINESVILLE (CBSMiami/AP) — Due to concerns about personal finances in the coming year, consumer confidence continues to dip in Florida.

The monthly University of Florida consumer sentiment released Friday measured confidence at 91.5, or down almost one point from January.

The consumer sentiment is rated on a scale of 2 to 150 benchmarked to 1966 at a value of 100.

Hector Sandoval, director of the economic analysis program at the UF's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, says many Floridians are not optimistic about their finances despite recent good news in the national economy.

He says the negative views were shared by the entire Florida population but that the steepest decline were experienced by women, followed by those with incomes under $50,000 and those age 60 and over.

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