NEW YORK – Confidence among U.S. consumers hit a 16-year low in June, after falling for the seventh time in as many months, according to a report today from The Conference Board.

The board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell this month to 50.4 points (1985 = 100), a decline of 7.7 points from May’s revised 58.1-point score and 54.9 points less thanthe June 2007 score of 105.3 points.

The month-over-month decline was the sharpest ever, according to Bloomberg News. Analysts had expected a 1.2-point decline – to 56 points, from the initial May estimate of 57.2 points (READ MORE) – based on the median forecast from a Bloomberg survey of 69 economists. (Their estimates for the June CCI ranged from 50 to 60 points.)

“This month’s Consumer Confidence Index is the fifth lowest reading ever,” Lynn Franco, director of the board’s Consumer Research Center, said in a statement today.

“Consumers’ assessment of present-day conditions continues to grow more negative and suggests the economy remains stuck in low gear. Looking ahead, consumers’ economic outlook is so bleak that the Expectations Index has reached a new all-time low,” she said.

The Present Situation Index plunged nearly 10 points to 64.5, from May’s downwardly revised 74.2 points.

Current business conditions were seen as good by 13.1 percent of respondents, down from last month’s revised 15.4 percent, the board said. The share saying business conditions are bad grew to 32.5 percent from last month’s revised 29.7 percent. The percent seeing jobs as plentiful fell to 14.1 from May’s 16.1 percent, while the share seeing them as difficult to find increased to 30.5 percent from the previous 28.3 percent.

The Expectations Index – a gauge of consumer hopes and fears for the economy over the next six months – fell to a record 41.0 points from May’s revised 47.3-point score.

Respondents’ outlook for business and employment conditions was uniformly grim.

The percent of respondents expecting business conditions to worsen over the next six months increased to 33.9 from May’s 32.9 percent, while the share predicting business conditions will improve fell to 8.8 percent from the previous 10.6 percent. The share expecting jobs to become scarcer rose to 35.5 percent in June from May’s 32.3 percent, while the share expecting jobs to increase fell to 8.0 percent from the previous 9.0 percent. And the share expecting their own incomes to grow fell to 12.3 percent from May’s revised 14.1 percent.

“Perhaps the silver lining to this otherwise dismal report is that consumer confidence may be nearing a bottom,” Franco said.

Others were not so optimistic, however. Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, told a gathering in Johannesburg today that recent data “suggest we are on the brink” of a recession, predicting the next year will be “a sluggish period” with a “highly volatile oil market,” according to Bloomberg News.

The Conference Board survey indicated that widespread pessimism and the rising cost of travel – prices for self-serve regular gas retreated 1 cent this week, to $4.07 per gallon nationwide and $4.099 in Rhode Island, in AAA’s weekly fuel price survey, but they remain at historic levels (READ MORE) – combined to take a big bite out of consumers’ holiday plans.

Nationwide, just 35.8 percent of respondents plan to take a vacation within the next six months, down from 39.6 percent in April (the last time the question was asked) and 42.2 percent in June 2007. Only 7.5 percent plan to travel abroad, down from 8.2 percent in April and 9.2 percent a year ago.

Other spending plans were also delayed: the share of consumers planning to buy appliances, homes and cars in the next six months all declined. “We’ve seen this dive in confidence in the last two months, at the same time these stimulus checks” were being mailed, Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York, told Bloomberg Television. “It tells me, if we see this pop in spending, it’s not going to last.”

In New England, the Consumer Confidence Index plunged to 28.3 points in June – the second-lowest of the survey’s nine regions, behind only the 27.5-point score of the “East North Central” region – from 49.7 points in May and 96.5 a year ago. (Regional figures are not seasonally adjusted, the board said.)

The indexes are based on a monthly survey conducted for The Conference Board by custom research firm TNS. The cutoff date for this month’s preliminary results was June 18.

The Conference Board is a nonpartisan, nonprofit business membership and research organization with offices in New York City, Chicago and abroad. Additional information is available at www.Conference-Board.org.