A record 91 percent of consumers expect that growth in their incomes will match or fall behind price gains in the coming year, according to participants in the September Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan sentiment survey, which dates back to 1978.

Until people see their wages or the labor market get better, they will be "spending on necessities, not desires," said Chris G. Christopher, senior principal economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Tamra Loomis, a graphic designer and single mother of two boys, uses the Internet at her parents' home, grows vegetables to trim grocery bills and takes advantage of coupons to shop. She makes $17 an hour and hasn't had a raise since September 2008, three months after she started working at a sign company in Antioch, California, about 40 miles northeast of San Francisco.

The owner has twice denied her request for higher wages and in January cut the hours for her and the company's other employee to 30 a week from 40, she said.

"My boss says because of the economy, things are tight, business is slow," so "at this point, I'm paycheck to paycheck," said Loomis, 32. "A lot of people aren't hiring, and when they are, they offer even less than what I make. It's really difficult."

The jobless rate held at 9.1 percent in September for a third consecutive month, while payrolls grew by 50,000 after no change in August, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists ahead of Labor Department figures due Oct. 7.

'National Crisis'

The unemployment situation is a "national crisis," Bernanke said in response to questions after a speech Sept. 28 in Cleveland. Obama is campaigning for congressional support of a $447 billion jobs program centered on rebuilding infrastructure and expanding payroll-tax breaks for workers and employers.

"It's certainly easier to focus on the greater sources of distress," BNP's Coronado said, referring to officials' concern about Americans who are out of work. "But the bigger bulk of economic momentum is going to be driven by people who are employed and how they feel about their prospects."

Consumer spending rose at a 0.7 percent annual rate in the second quarter, less than half the 2.1 percent pace in January- March, the Commerce Department reported last week. Gross domestic product expanded less than 1 percent on average in January-June, the worst six months of the recovery.