U.S. Incomes and Spending Increase in February

U.S. personal spending rose in February for an eighth straight month, as job growth helped propel income and sales, a government report showed today.

The 0.5 percent rise in purchases followed a 0.1 percent increase in January, the Commerce Department reported in Washington. Incomes rose 0.3 percent after falling 2.5 percent the prior month. The savings rate declined.

Job growth is giving people the income to buy clothes, cars and other goods even as they pay record prices for gasoline. Such purchases will help keep the economy motoring after growing last year by the most since 1999.

Consumer spending “is still growing at a healthy pace, and for the rest of the year things are looking good, in that spending is getting support from employment growth,” said Peter Kretzmer, a senior economist at Banc of America Securities LLC in New York, before the report.

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