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Mon. 9:33 a.m.: US consumer spending surges 0.9 percent in March

In this April 24 file photo, a customer shops for bananas at a Walmart Neighborhood Market in Levittown, N.Y. U.S. consumer spending surged 0.9 percent in March, the biggest gain in nearly a decade, as inflation pressures remained non-existent, the Commerce Department said this morning. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer spending surged 0.9 percent in March, the biggest gain in nearly a decade, as inflation pressures remain non-existent.

The March gain was the biggest monthly increase since August 2009, the Commerce Department reported this morning. That’s a marked improvement after three months of lackluster readings in this key segment of the economy. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.

Incomes grew 0.1 percent in March while inflation rose just 0.2 percent and has risen only 1.5 percent over the past 12 months, far below the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target for inflation.

The big jump in consumer spending is encouraging because it suggests that the overall economy had solid momentum going into the April-June quarter.

The government reported Friday that the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew at a surprisingly strong 3.2 percent, helped by the March surge in consumer spending. However, economists noted that about half of the first quarter strength came from a big rise in inventory stocking by businesses and by a sharp narrowing in the trade deficit. Both of those gains were expected to be temporary and that could subtract from growth in the current quarter.

The 0.9 percent March jump in spending followed a sharp 0.6 percent drop in December and tiny gains of 0.3 percent in January and 0.1 percent in February. The slight 0.1 percent rise in incomes in March followed a modest 0.2 percent rise in February and a 0.1 percent decline in January.

With the big rise in spending and the small increase in incomes, the household saving rate fell to 6.5 percent of after-tax income in March, the lowest level since November when it was 6.2 percent.

The 1.5 percent year-over-year increase in consumer prices was up from a 1.3 percent 12-month gain in February but still well below the Fed’s target.

The absence of inflation pressures was a key reason that the central bank did an about-face this year and announced that after boosting its benchmark interest rate four times in 2018, it planned to be “patient” and expected that it would not raise rates at all in 2019.

That change has helped spur a big rally in the stock market as investors stopped worrying that the Fed was in danger of over-doing its credit tightening campaign and might drive the economy into a recession.

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