NEW YORK – Americans’ confidence about the economy brightened this month as a closely watched survey of consumer sentiment rose to its highest level since the collapse of Lehman Bros. last September.

The Reuters/University of Michigan said its preliminary index of consumer confidence increased to 67.9 in May, from 65.1 in April. In November, the index fell to a three-decade low of 55.3, according to Bloomberg News.

The results were more positive than economists had expected in a Bloomberg survey where the median of 53 estimates was that the index would rise to 67.

“Financial-market improvement and the fiscal stimulus [are] leading to stabilization in spending and improvement in confidence,” Dean Maki, co-head of U.S. economic research at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York, told Bloomberg. “Economic data, while choppy, has improved somewhat, and consumer spending has stabilized.”

The survey’s expectations gauge, which Bloomberg said “more closely predicts the direction of consumer spending,” rose to 69 from 63.1 in April. That is the highest score for the expectations index since October 2007, Retuers reported.

Separately, the cost of borrowing between banks continued to fall today thanks to government capital and interest rate cuts, and the TED spread – the difference between what banks and the U.S. Treasury pay for short-term borrowing – narrowed to its lowest level since the credit crisis began in August 2007, Bloomberg reported.