Roach’s outlook for tempered consumption growth gets some support from Russ Koesterich, the San Francisco-based chief investment strategist at BlackRock Inc. and from Yelena Shulyatyeva, an economist at BNP Paribas in New York.

“The labor market is recovering very slowly, and really the missing ingredient of this recovery has been income growth,” Koesterich said during a Bloomberg Television interview last week. “With income growth very slow, that means that consumption may not grow as fast as some people think.”

The economy’s inability to generate bigger wage gains is also a concern for Shulyatyeva. “Wages have to pick up, and even when we see growth in payrolls we don’t see much of an acceleration,” she said in an interview. “Consumers are still deleveraging, and there’s really not that much willingness on the consumer side to start borrowing again.”

While the job market is in better shape, it’s still weak, said Harvard’s Lawrence Katz, a former Labor Department chief economist. Wage gains have been slow, he said, long-term unemployment remains high, and many of the pluses in the economy mainly benefit upper-income consumers.

Income Inequality

“If you are sitting on a large bonus from Wall Street or you’re a post-college graduate in a steady job, you’re probably pretty confident going out and spending,” said Katz, 54. “For a large part of Americans, it’s still a very tenuous economy.”

Rising inequality could become an increasing concern, Katz said, as people in poorer households struggle to access education and job opportunities.

Wealth gains have accrued at the higher end of the income spectrum, while wages have been expanding more slowly. Hourly earnings climbed 1.8 percent in 2013, the slowest pace in three years. Rising home and stock prices primarily benefit those who hold the assets.

“The upper-income earners who have benefited from the rise in wealth have been spending, will continue to spend, but I just don’t think that the lower-income consumers who are still facing high unemployment rates and low wages are going to spend a lot more in 2014,” Michelle Girard, chief U.S. economist at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut, said in an interview.

Aggregate Spending