This is an interesting article on how consumers were spending more even though inflation has caused income after taxes to not increase in a similar fashion. You would think that these two things would go hand in hand and that when income is increasing at a certain rate, spending would also increase but in this case income did not increase too much but spending did increase considerably, even though gas prices are high. I believe the reason for this is that people are more optimistic about the economy and as more and more jobs are added and unemployment rates are lowering people are more confident and happy with their situation. I think that this has caused an increase in consumer spending, and as the article states this trend might stop as gas prices are rising and people are going to be making cuts on their spending of other goods to afford these prices.
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/30/149680235/consumer-spending-rose-last-month-but-income-lagged
I think you make a good point Chris. I remember reading in 2009 and 2010 that household credit card balances decreased. While only a fraction of the labor force lost their jobs or had wage cuts, the rest of the country was "nervous" and paid down their debts. Increasing spending without income increases just seems to be reversing the trend and going back to the status quo.
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