Consumer spending rose 0.8 percent in July from June, the Bureau of Economic Analysis just reported. The increase came as personal income rose 0.3 percent.
Spending had dipped 0.1 percent in June from May. That had raised concerns about whether consumers — who buy about 70 percent of all goods and services — might pull an already weak economy down further.
Today's report might alleviate some of those worries. But as The Washington Post writes, many Americans "are still spooked" and not spending as freely as they once did.
Meanwhile, President Obama is expected to announce at 11 a.m. ET that he is naming labor economist Alan Krueger to be chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Krueger would replace Austan Goolsbee, who stepped down earlier this month.
Krueger, now at Princeton University, was an assistant Treasury secretary during the first two years of the Obama adminstration.
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