Incomes Are Flat, Reflecting a Slowdown in Job Growth, but Consumer Spending Rises

American consumer spending has increased by 0.4% in December, following an increase of 0.6% in consumer spending in November of 2013.  However, incomes have only increased by 0.2% in November and did not increase in December.  The income growth for 2013 was 2.8%, and due to the fact that there was no increase in income in December, it may be expected that employment growth will decline momentarily.  However, there is good news that current predictions estimate that 2014 will see an increase in employment growth, which will give people more disposable income to spend.  At the same time, the Federal Reserve is planning to decrease its actions with the federal economic stimulus.  This could mean an increase in the domestic interest rates.  Some economic forecasters have voiced concern that an increase in interest rates would not be productive for the US economy.  Although other economic predictions have been positive since Congress has recently stopped the slashing of government spending, there is a new belief that the federal government will not be as counterproductive with economic growth as it was in 2013 (where policies of the federal government decreased economic growth by 1.5%).  Some recent information that has been released by groups such as the University of Michigan show that the "index of consumer sentiment" has decreased to 81.2 from 82.5 between December to January.   Also, the saving rate has decreased to 3.9% after taxes.  Overall, there should be some economic growth in the US, but different factors such as an increase in interest rates or perhaps federal policies such as cutting government spending could decrease some of the potential for economic growth in 2014 for the US economy.