US consumer confidence falls in January US consumer confidence slipped in January, after two straight months of gains that had stirred hopes for a broader turnaround in the economy, according to the Conference Board index released Tuesday. The index slipped to 61.1 down from 64.8 in December, returning to the level of two months ago. "Consumers' assessment of current business and labor market conditions turned more downbeat and is back to November 2011 levels," said Lynn Franco, head of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center. Regarding the short-term outlook, consumers are more upbeat about employment, but less optimistic about business conditions and their income prospects. Recent increases in gasoline prices may have consumers feeling a little less confident this month. After falling in October to its lowest level since 2009, at 40.9, the index had improved sharply in November and December. Timothy Daigle at Moody's Analytics said the fall was also likely tied to of political issues like the political fight over extending unemployment insurance and a payroll tax holiday, and worries over the eurozone crisis. Most of the decline in confidence represented dimmer views on current conditions for businesses and employment. However, the expectations index, measuring consumers' outlook for the next six months and the leading indicator in the data, slipped only slightly. "Despite the decline in the headline index in January, it remains above its November level and suggests to us that the sharp rise in December likely overstated the actual improvement in confidence," said Cooper Howes at Barclays Capital. Thus, we continue to perceive consumer confidence to be on a positive trend and expect it to rise modestly as labor market conditions improve. Ian Shepherdson at High Frequency Economics agreed. "Expectations are the leading economic indicator in the survey, and they are trending higher," he said. Renewed consumer confidence is considered key to jump-starting the spending that drives the bulk of the world's biggest economy. Job insecurity remains rampant despite four straight months of falls in the unemployment rate as a fragile recovery from recession makes little headway in healing the labor market. The report came ahead of Friday's release on January job data. The Labor Department is expected to report the jobless rate was unchanged at 8.5 percent from December. Most analysts predict job creation will have slowed, with the economy adding a net 155,000 jobs in January compared with 200,000 in December.