Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, climbed at a 3 percent annualized rate in the first quarter, the best reading since the same period in 2011, according to the Bloomberg survey median. Last month’s survey projected a 1.6 percent advance.

“We feel good about the consumer in 2013,” Karen M. Hoguet, chief financial officer of Macy’s Inc., said in a March 13 investor conference. “Every indication we’re seeing is that he and she are doing fine, still buying.”

Payroll Tax

The levy used to fund Social Security reverted to 6.2 percent of income this year, the same as in 2010, from 4.2 percent in each of the past two years as part of the agreement to avert the so-called fiscal cliff of tax increases and spending cuts that were to take effect in January. That reduced take-home pay by about $83 a month for anyone earning $50,000 a year.

Buoyed by rising stock and home prices and a surge in income at the end of last year, households responded to the higher taxes by putting less money away in the bank, Kasman said. The saving rate, or the share of disposable income that consumers set aside, plunged to 2.2 percent in January, the lowest since August 2007, from 6.5 percent the prior month, according to figures from the Commerce Department. It improved to 2.6 percent in February.

Improving Fundamentals

“The fundamentals do look firmer,” said JPMorgan Chase’s Kasman. “The business sector is looking like it’s healthy.” While he sees growth slowing to 1.5 percent this quarter, he projects it will pick up to 2 percent in the third quarter and to 2.5 percent in the last three months of the year.

Among the improving fundamentals is the country’s growing fuel independence. The U.S. produced 84 percent of its own energy in 2012, the most since 1991, according to data from the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department. The measure of self-sufficiency rose to 88 percent in December, the highest since February 1987.

U.S. production of crude oil in the fourth quarter of this year will exceed imports for the first time since 1995, as extraction from shale rock formations in North Dakota and Texas put the nation on track to surpass record output, the EIA projected last month.

Energy Costs