The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Consumer confidence barely budged this month amid lingering worries about the job market, but economists said they still don't expect the evident caution to dampen spending over the next few months.

The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its consumer confidence index slipped to 88.3 this month from a revised 88.5 in February. The February figure was sharply lower than the revised 97.7 reading in January.

The March reading - the lowest level since last October, when it reached 81.7 - was higher than the 86 that analysts had expected, given that the survey period included the bombing in Madrid and the subsequent sell-off on Wall Street.

The Present Situations index, one component of the confidence index that seeks to measure consumers' assessment of current conditions, rose to 84.1 from 83.3 in February. The Expectations Index, which seeks to gauge their outlook for six months from now, fell to 91 from 91.9.

"While consumers claimed business conditions were more favorable in March than last month, they also claimed jobs were less readily available," Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board's Consumer Research Center, said in a statement. "The labor market not only continues to dampen consumers' present-day spirits, but it is also making them less optimistic about the short-term outlook."

Mark Vittner, senior economist at Wachovia Securities, noted that there is "a lot more lingering anxiety about the economy than we have seen in any other economic recovery."

But he added, "Consumers are not as worried about their personal finances as they are about the economy in general."