As the holiday shopping season stumbles toward its frantic conclusion, countless opinion polls and surveys will remind us that Americans believe the economy is in the doghouse. And short of a miracle not seen since, well, ever, there's little evidence that times will get better over the next few months.

Indeed, last week's downright scary employment report, which showed that more than a half-million jobs vanished from offices and factories around the country in November, will add only more doom to everyone's gloom.

Amid the bad news, however, the election of Barack Obama appears to have given Americans a lift. According to the CNBC/Portfolio.com Wealth in America Survey, 55 percent of respondents expect the economy to improve under the new president. Still, a cynic, could point out that 55 percent matches up pretty nicely with Obama's  share of the popular vote.

How seriously can we take any of these surveys, especially with a severe financial crisis and economic downturn the likes of which most of us have never lived through? The predictions of professional forecasters largely failed us in the run-up to the current recession. Can consumers do any better?

The short answer is no. While for many years, economists believed that consumer surveys helped improve forecasts of consumer spending, more recent research has shown otherwise.        

Still, surveys of consumers can tell us something about their state of mind. For example, other surveys have shown similar bounces higher after the November elections, a situation which is actually an anomaly. A study by European economists last year found that in elections in the United States and Europe over the last two decades, consumer confidence typically rose before an election and dipped thereafter, regardless of whether the incumbent party won or lost. Political contests appear to instill some hope for a brighter future, which are then quickly dashed when "politics as usual" resumes.

Confidence surveys in the U.S. showed a similar upward trend this year until September, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent panic throughout the financial system. The European study's results then suggest that the optimism surrounding Obama could be a red herring if no significant action is taken on the reeling economy soon after he becomes president, or if the action is perceived to be unhelpful.

To Obama's credit, the possibility of little legislative movement post-January seems remote: Democrats in control of Congress and the president-elect has continuously pledged to act quickly on an economic stimulus plan once he enters office.

And the selection of Berkeley's Christina Romer also suggests that speed is on Obama's mind. Romer's past research into the Depression, the historic economic calamity that our own is most often compared to, offers an example of when consumer confidence does matter.

In a 1990 paper titled "The Great Crash and the Onset of the Great Depression," Romer examined how the stock market collapse of 1929 spilled over into the real economy. Contrary to popular belief at the time—and probably still now—Romer argued that the stock-market crash and the Depression were two distinct events. One didn't automatically lead to the other. The link connecting the two was the role of low sentiment and how it reduced business activity.

"The stock-market crash temporarily increased uncertainty about the course of future income," wrote Romer. "The result of this temporary uncertainty was that consumers, and to a lesser degree investors, cut spending on durable goods drastically as they waited for the uncertainty to be resolved."

Romer wrote the paper shortly after the 1987 stock-market crash, which, she noted, only had a small impact on the rest of the economy: After a brief downturn, spending recovered and grew at a normal rate.  

But this time around, the situation is sure to be worse. Consumer purchases of big-ticket items like cars and appliances have fallen sharply for two consecutive months through October. Total consumer spending, which makes up more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy, is on a five-month decline, the longest such stretch since the government began tracking it in 1959.

If future income expectations are the linchpin for a return to growth, as Romer's research implies, then the picture looks even grimmer. For even while there is optimism over Obama, a little-followed indicator released monthly by the Conference Board shows that only one out of 10 Americans expect their incomes to increase over the next six months, down from one out of five at the end of 2007 and the lowest level since 1980.

If there is a bit of good news in all of this, it's that while consumer confidence indicators can usually be ignored, that's not the case during times of great distress. Which means that the opinion-polling industry, unlike most others, should breathe a little easier now.