More and more Australian consumers are losing confidence in the economic outlook as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) warns higher inflation and further interest rate hikes are on the horizon.
The Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey indicated that the consumer sentiment index dropped 4.5 percent to 86.4 in June following the RBA’s decision to raise the cash rate to 0.85 percent from 0.35 percent previously.
Westpac chief economist Bill Evans noted that over the 46-year history of the survey, there had been only five times that the consumer sentiment index was at or lower than the above level, including the COVID-19 pandemic and economic recessions in the 1980s and 1990s….