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Merrick, NY—After several months of anemic job numbers, March showed an encouraging lift with 192,000 jobs created. According to a report from the Wells Fargo Economics Group, March job growth was broad based, although weakness persisted in the federal government sector. Jobs in local government, however, continued to recover. The unemployment rate remained at 6.7% in March but the median duration of unemployment fell by almost two weeks, to 16.3 weeks, from 18.1 weeks a year ago.

Better hiring, longer hours and an improved wage outlook over the past six months will support better income growth in the months ahead. Wells Fargo’s outlook remains for a weak GDP print to start the year, but growth to pick up over the rest of the year. Since the bank’s economists expect stronger growth ahead, they also expect hiring to accelerate in the coming months—but the improved pace of job gains likely will not significantly address the challenge of the long-term unemployed, who continue to account for an elevated share of the unemployed.

“Over the first quarter, average hourly earnings rose at a 2.3% annualized pace which, along with a rise in jobs and hours worked, supports our case for better real incomes in 2014 and thereby, a better outlook for consumer spending,” says the report. Wells Fargo’s expectation is for real disposable income to rise 1.8% in 2014, compared to 0.7% last year.

Consumers are still waiting for that rise in disposable income. Consumer confidence rebounded nicely in March, according to figures from the Conference Board. The March 2014 Consumer Confidence Survey index rose four points to 82.3, more than reversing the decline in February. Consumers are fairly upbeat about the future but their view of present circumstances remains unchanged.

The percentage of consumers expecting business conditions to improve over the next six months increased to 18.1 percent from 17.3 percent in February, while those anticipating business conditions to worsen declined to 10.2 percent from 13.6 percent in February. Consumers’ outlook for the labor market was also moderately more optimistic: those expecting more jobs in the months ahead edged up to 13.9 percent from 13.7 percent, while those expecting fewer jobs fell to 18.0 percent from 20.9 percent. The proportion of consumers expecting their incomes to grow declined to 14.9 from 15.8 percent, but those anticipating a decline in their incomes also decreased, to 12.1 percent from 13.4 percent.

Whatever consumers might be feeling, they still seem to be buying jewelry, as figures from both the U.S. government and a Centurion spot-check survey of better jewelers revealed.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the United States increased 0.5 percent in February to 99.8 (2004 = 100), following a 0.1 percent increase in January, and a 0.1 percent decline in December.

“The U.S. LEI increased sharply in February, suggesting that any weather-related volatility will be short lived and the economy should continue to improve into the second half of the year,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, economist at The Conference Board. “The strengths and weaknesses in the LEI were balanced in February, with large increases in housing permits and the interest rate spread more than offsetting decreases in the workweek in manufacturing, consumer expectations and rising initial claims for unemployment insurance.”

“While the CEI shows the pace of economic activity remained slow at the start of 2014, the trend in the LEI remains quite positive,” said Ken Goldstein, economist at The Conference Board. “The biggest challenge continues to be weak consumer demand, pinned down by weak wage growth. These conditions were still in evidence the first two months of the year, but will likely improve as spring arrives.”

Retail sales edged down slightly in March from February, but still posted a 2.8% increase from a year earlier, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The third week of the month was the strongest, with a 3.1% increase over last year.

Top image: clker.com