The five standard items of the Survey Research Center Index of Consumer Sentiment were administered to a local sample of households in May of two successive years by relatively untrained interviewers. The resulting values were found to be sensitive to differences in socioeconomic status and reflected changes in value from 1975 to 1976 that could be related meaningfully to the conventional values based on quarterly, national samples. It was suggested that the local and sub-population utility of the index could be pursued using frequent small sample surveys requiring less highly trained interviewers than those used for national surveys.