Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said that consumer spending could remain modest as the economy recovers from the recession, even with steady improvement in the housing market, the Wall street Journal reported today. Americans lost $16 trillion in total wealth from the end 2007, when the U.S. recession started, until early 2009, Krueger said. That amounted to about one-fourth of total U.S. wealth. It has since regained $13.5 trillion of that wealth, mostly owing to a rebound in the stock market and recent house price improvements. "If you destroy that much wealth, people need to rebuild their retirement positions and they need to save for their children's educations," he said. "That is a big challenge for consumption going forward."
