Consumer Confidence Hits Historic Low, New York Candy Stores Experience Golden Age

NEW YORK — The University of Michigan’s consumer confidence index has cratered to a historic low, Americans report feeling “less optimistic than at any point since 1952,” and the nation’s economists have declared the mood “dismal.” And yet, in Manhattan, the candy stores are having the best quarter of their lives.

“We’ve never seen demand like this,” said Mitchell Cohen, third-generation owner of Economy Candy, the Lower East Side institution that has been selling penny candy since 1937. “People walk in looking like they’ve just been told the stock market is a metaphor for something bad. They leave with two pounds of gummy bears and a renewed sense of purpose.”

The juxtaposition has economists scrambling for an explanation. Consumer confidence is at a historic low while the Big Apple’s sweet shops are expanding at a clip not seen since the Eisenhower administration — a divergence one economist called “the most delicious economic paradox since the invention of the donut index.”

“This makes perfect sense,” said Dr. Eleanor Whitfield, professor of behavioral economics at NYU, pausing to unwrap a saltwater taffy. “Confidence is a forward-looking metric about the future. Candy is a backward-looking metric about the only reliable thing in America: sugar. When people don’t trust tomorrow, they buy something they know will be delicious today.”

The trend appears to be broad-based. Sales of chocolate-covered pretzels are up 340%. Gourmet popcorn shops report customers “crying gently while selecting flavors.” One Brooklyn caramels boutique says its entire inventory sells out daily “to men in suits who appear to have given up.”

The stock market, meanwhile, continues to rally toward fresh records, creating a three-way split in the American psyche that analysts say could power the economy for years.

At press time, the Federal Reserve declined to comment on whether it would consider sugar a leading economic indicator, though one regional bank president was reportedly seen carrying a 5-pound box of assorted jellies out of Economy Candy, muttering something about “base rates.”