(The Conference Board: New York) -- The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had declined in June 2012, improved slightly in July. The index now stands at 65.9, up from 62.7 in June. The Expectations Index improved to 79.1, from 73.4. The Present Situation Index, however, decreased slightly to 46.2 from 46.6 a month ago.

U.S. corporations continue to lag far behind their counterparts in other developed economies—notably the European Union and Japan—in transparency of environmental and social practices. According to a new study by The Conference Board, the overall disclosure rate of this type of information by U.S. companies in the Russell 1000 is 10 percent, compared to 19 percent for a global sample of 3,000 business organizations tracked by Bloomberg’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) database.

(The Conference Board: New York) -- Americans of all ages and income brackets have the highest job satisfaction levels since the beginning of the Great Recession. However, the majority continue to be unhappy at work, according to a report released by The Conference Board.

According to a new report from The Conference Board, the proportion of employees who work predominantly from home or from another remote location has, during the last decade, more than tripled in many industries, while nearly doubling nationwide among all full-time (nonself-employed) U.S. workers.