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Wealthy bolstering US consumer spending
NEW YORK Rich shoppers are driving an increase in consumer spending, bolstering a recovery that masks reluctance among less affluent Americans to join in.
Sales are up at Tiffany Co. and Coach Inc., buoyed by demand for $6,000 diamond pendants and $1,200 leather handbags as a stock market surge pads the wallets of the wealthy. At the other end of the economic spectrum,[url=http://nikefree.mobilejeti.com]billige nike free[/url], WalMart Stores Inc., the world largest discount retailer, reports everyday Americans are living paycheck to paycheck as they await an improvement in job prospects.
heavy lifting is being done by the upperincome households, said Michael Feroli, a former Federal Reserve economist who is now chief US economist at JPMorgan Chase. the ones benefiting the most from the stock market rally, and they spending. Unemployment averaged 9.6 percent last year, the highest since 1983, even as the expansion gathered speed.
Consumer purchases reflect bigger gains among highincome households and pressures on those of moremodest means, according to minutes of the Fed Dec. 14 meeting. Feroli estimates the top 20 percent of wage earners account for about 40 percent of spending, while Dean Maki, chief US economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York, puts their contribution at closer to 50 percent.
Highend retailers led the increase in December sales at stores open at least a year, company data showed Jan. 6. The Bloomberg Retail Sales Luxury index jumped 8.1 percent from the same month a year earlier, while the Bloomberg Retail Sales Discount index rose 0.9 percent. Nationwide, retail sales climbed 0.6 percent last month, capping the biggest annual gain in more than a decade, according to the Commerce Department.
The economy lost about 8 million jobs during the worst recession since the 1930s, and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said in Senate testimony on Jan. 7 that employers remain reluctant to hire. Payrolls expanded by 103,000 workers in December, less than the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. A healthier labor market would put more money in the hands of shoppers across the board, lifting consumption.
Rising share prices signal rich shoppers will retain an edge in driving spending. The top 20 percent of income earners own about 80 percent of equity wealth and half of housing wealth, Maki estimates.
The S 500 index has soared 91 percent from its March 2009 low. On top of that, President Obama on Dec. 17 signed into law an $858 billion bill extending Bushera tax cuts for two years for all income groups, instead of letting them expire for family earnings that exceed $250,000 a year, the cutoff the administration uses for the middle class.
striking, said Dean Baker, codirector of the Washingtonbased Center for Economic and Policy Research. of the rest of the country is still suffering while the wealthy seem to be largely insulated. You would think they wouldn have all that much to complain about. Instead they had unending criticism for the Obama administration.